The Kanawha County Parks and Recreation Commission on Wednesday agreed to accept the sole bid it received in an auction involving a 75-acre tract of land near the former Sandy Brae Golf Course near Amma that commissioners only recently realized that they owned.
Director Jeff Hutchinson said the land was near, but not connected to the former golf course property that was sold in 2006, and has since reverted to grazing land for a farm operation.
"It was up on the hill behind the golf course," said Hutchinson, who added that he was unaware that the tract belonged to the commission until a man who lives near the property told him who owned it and informed Hutchinson that he wanted to buy it.
The land was appraised at $38,000 and the commission spent $5,500 to pay for the appraisal and a survey of the tract, and hoped to sell the land for at least $43,500 - the appraisal price plus expenses. The one bid made on the tract fell $6,000 short of that goal, but the commission voted to accept it anyway, rather than go through the time and expense of attempting to auction it again.
More than three-fourths of the former 18-hole golf course, which was experiencing dwindling use in the years before it was sold, was situated in Roane County.
In other developments at Wednesday's meeting, Charleston resident Steve Koepsel,who operates Disc Golf Sports Center, sought reassurances from the parks board that Coonskin Park would continue to offer a disc golf course should neighboring Yeager Airport's runway extension plan move forward and claim most of the existing course. After discussing possibilities with Koepsel, commission members directed Hutchinson to eventually relocate the Coonskin disc golf course to the existing golf course, and make use of the same general tee and hole alignment used by golfers.
Reach Rick Steelhammer at rsteelhammer@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5169 or follow @rsteelhammer on Twitter.