Unwilling to raise taxes enough to start operating parkland it has held for years, the Scott County Board is heading instead for what could prove an awkward marriage with a private company.
Two firms are finalists to operate Cedar Lake Farm near New Prague, the board learned Tuesday. If the good news is that there was strong private-sector interest in helping open the park to public use within months, the bad news is that ticklish details remain. Among them:
• The county's reluctance to staff the park. It is proposing instead to ask a retired couple in an RV to take on a host of tasks as volunteers living on-site.
• The county's reluctance to allow alcohol to be served in a regional park. That could limit customer interest in things such as weddings, which a private company would rely on for its business.
• The difficulty of mingling public users of a public park with private customers of a private business, when it comes time, for instance, to sort out who's entitled to be in line for hot dogs or to grab an inflatable and head for the beach.
The likeliest choice of partner, officials said, is Lancer Hospitality, which helps manage facilities for the Como Park Zoo in St. Paul and Edinburgh Golf Course in Brooklyn Park. The other finalist, Mintahoe Hospitality, the product of a recent merger, runs the Nicollet Island pavilion for Minneapolis.
The board has been stockpiling parks acreage for decades without feeling it was ready to open the parks for full public use. Cedar Lake Farm is a candidate for early use because it boasts features such as a catering kitchen, having been operated by a private party as a day camp for many years.
The 230-acre site also includes ball fields, picnic tables, boats, docks and other infrastructure.