City workers will continue to maintain the grounds of the Coral Oaks Golf Course, Cape Coral City Council decided Monday, unanimously rejecting a plan to outsource the effort despite a projected cost saving.

Council also decided to seek an outside consultant to conduct an operational review of the city-owned and operated course, which requires the city subsidize the cost of operations with tax dollars.

The city administration proposed contacting maintenance to International Golf Maintenance and reassigning the city workers to other duties, thereby saving more than $2.2 million over the course of the contract.

Lakeland-based IGM would have been responsible for all maintenance, supplies, equipment and staff needed to maintain the course. The contract would have been for five years with two two-year options, at a cost of $4,290,285.

City workers opposed the move and made their feelings known by attending the meeting and having their local union president and other leaders speak on their behalf during citizens input.

Councilmember Jennifer Nelson wasted no time in expressing her desire to see the proposal killed.

“One of the things that sticks out to me is about subsidies. We need to decide if we will offer this as an amenity. The course needs a lot of work. It’s outdated, but it has a chance to make money if we had anything there,” said Nelson, who ultimately made the motion to reject. “We should reject this for now.”

Mayor Joe Coviello said the city needs to make a commitment to the course to make it somewhere golfers will want to go.

“We need to go big or go home. The northwest Cape is growing and there are no restaurants. We need to look at the overall picture,” Coviello said. “We need to maintain it as a city park no different than any other city park and to commit to it.”

The council voted 8-0 to kill the resolution that would have approved the outsourcing contract, then voted unanimously again for the city manager to search for a consulting firm that works with golf courses to do an analysis on what the city could do to improve the course and make it enticing to visit, something that could mean a rather large investment.

Those speaking for the city workers, who now won’t be moved elsewhere, possibly displacing others and so creating a seniority a domino effect, called the vote the right one.

“We think it’s in the best interest of the city and the employees that we keep the service in house,” said Richard Jones, president of Local 2301. “We would have had to look at displacing employees from the golf course and, through the collective bargaining agreement, would have had the opportunity to work somewhere else at the expense of less senior employees.”

“We just voted on a $60 million referendum to pay for parks and according to the zoning, Coral Oaks is a park, and all the parks for softball and BMX are subsidized,” said Walter Ilczyszyn, “If changes need to be made, why do they go to the lowest paid employees on the totem pole? To make management look good, they hurt the little guy.”

Coviello said it turned out to be a fairly easy decision as it will be good for employees and residents who use the course.

“Over the years, we shied away from improving the course because of the subsidies,” Coviello said. “We’re going to do an operational study to see if we can improve the revenue stream and the profitability of the course.”