[REF] switch from (undeclared) class property to local variable.

[REF] switch from (undeclared) class property to local variable.

We either needed to declare the variable on the class & make it a local variable. Switching
to a local var reflects the fact it is never accessed from outside thie function & improves readability.

grepping for _userOptions returns nothing after this.

I also removed an extraneous config singleton call. I can't see a strong case that either of
these changes will affect the intermittent fails but ... maybe?