Coral Gables hiring 31 to staff its country club

Moving along with restoration and revamping plans for the Coral Gables Country Club, city staff got the OK to proceed with the hiring selection.

As part of phase one, employment positions are being filled for the city-owned country club’s banquet hall, gym and pool. The positions include seven full-time and 24 part-time jobs, with a projected $1.8 million in operating expenses.

The club had an outside operator until this year and sought a change in operations. Rather than bring in a new operator, city commissioners decided that the city itself would operate the club.

“The reason we brought this back up is that we restructured some of the positions,” said Carolina Vester, Coral Gables’ assistant parks & recreation director. “So originally, you had a country club manager and then supervisors, but based on the competitive pay in that industry we had to restructure the positions a little bit. It’s going to be more of a division director that’s going to oversee the entire country club operations. And then underneath this position, you’d have multiple managers that oversee the specific areas within the industry.”

Positions for the maintenance, tennis and golf will differ and be dealt with later, she said. The country club is set to offer various levels of membership options and packages accessing the golf course, pool, tennis and pickleball courts, banquet hall rentals and onsite café access.

There also have been discussions with existing staff members who were interviewed, said Fred Couceyro, the city’s parks & recreation director, “and we’re in the process of negotiations to get a few of them on board in the next 30 days.”

Mayor Vince Lago reiterated what he has said during previous discussions when it comes to full-time employees: “I don’t want to see any pension exposure. I want these individuals to be on 401 K’s, even if we have to compensate them more. I want to limit the number of employees that are on the pension plan.”

Pensions are a benefit of the city if they’re considered full-time city employees, added Diana Gomez, the city’s finance director. “They have an option, and they can choose a pension plan or the 401 K, but we can mandate it.”

This is an addition to the list of reasons why it’s not ideal for the city to run the country club, Commissioner Jorge L. Fors Jr. added. “Although I know we have no choice at this point if we can’t get out of it, we can’t avoid mentioning all these employees. It’s another doozy.”

It will be difficult to hire within the time frame involved and change the pension plan at the same time, City Manager Peter Iglesias said.

“We do have time with the other two phases to look at restructuring,” Ms. Vester added, “but right now, we were concentrating on the fitness center and the banquet halls to get it operational.”