In a moved aimed at attracting a national tournament to the Kanawha Valley, Dunbar City Council voted during its Tuesday meeting to invest in the existing disc golf course in Wine Cellar Park.
Disc golf - a game where players follow golf's main concepts but ditch the golf clubs a for a range of flying discs and aim for 4-foot high target instead of a hole - has grown nationally and locally in recent years.
The city will lay $1,500 worth of concrete in the course's 18 "tee-off" areas. The change from gravel starting areas to concrete makes the course eligible to host national tournaments, Mayor Terry Greenlee said.
Steve Koepsel, of the Kanawha Valley Disc Golf Club, with support from area volunteers and the Dunbar recreational department created a nine-hole-course in 2014.
"Then the course got so popular they wanted to put in another nine holes to make it an 18-hole golf course," Greenlee said. "Then the next thing we know, you have so many people playing disc golf, so many tournaments that the local disc golf community wants to try and recruit a national tournament."
He's been impressed and somewhat surprised with the course's popularity.
"I knew [disc golf] was an up-and-coming sport, but I had no idea it was going to take off the way it did," he said.
This will be the city's first financial support for the course.
"We need to help [the course] a long, it's in our city and volunteers have done so much work to bring the course along," Greenlee said.
Greenlee told council and attendees the local disc golf community hopes to attract one of the larger tournaments that would bring in between 3,000 to 5,000 people to the Kanawha Valley. After the change at the course, the area also meets the tournament's criteria of having three nearby courses with Dunbar, South Charleston and St. Albans.
So far, the recruitment effort is being coordinated primarily through the disc golf league and not on the municipal level, Greenlee said.
Also on Tuesday, council passed the first reading of an ordinance to change the municipal election date.
"We want to change the charter to have [the municipal election date] coincide with the national election," Greenlee said.
The change, which must go through the ordinance committee, a public hearing and 30-day public notice, is estimated to save to city more than $30,000.
"It's just another thing we're doing to help the revenue in Dunbar," Greenlee said.
The special municipal election featured 10 elected positions - eight council seats, city clerk and mayor.
Council approved spending $5,000 on a new sound system for council chambers. The new system will feature individual mounted microphones for city officials and speakers in the ceilings throughout the chamber.
The move comes after people attending meetings voiced concerns about not being able to hear officials speak.
Electronic Specialties out of Cross Lanes is installing the system. Its installation is expected to take two to three weeks, and council hopes to have it in place by next council meeting.
In other business, council:
n Welcomed Jordan Kinser as a probationary firefighter effective immediately. Dunbar will be up to full staff again once he is fully trained. Kinser brings Emergency Medical Training work-experience to his new role.
n Approved a budget for the city's largest annual event, the Fall Festival. The festival is set for September 16 - 18. The event kicks off at 5 pm.
n Reported that $18,000 in past due municipal fees has been collected since the city enhanced its efforts to recoup delinquent fees with potential property liens.