Letter: Will city maintain new pickleball courts? History says no.
This is not about pickleball. This is not about tennis. I care nothing for either one. This is about Wesselman Park, arguably and environmentally an extension of Wesselman Woods, but with picnic shelters. I care a lot about that.
The City of Evansville appears hell-bent-for-leather on plowing up and paving a three-acre meadow inside this small park in order to install up to two dozen dedicated pickleball courts (Pickleball? Think ping-pong, but you stand on the table). Plus a large new parking lot.
The City has offered “yes-but” arguments in defense of this environmentally indefensible plan but I am calling for an injunction to stop any further destruction of that meadow, and in doing so, establishing a five-year-moratorium on pouring concrete on any current green space within this park’s perimeter.
Pickleball may be “the fastest growing sport in America,” but I recall that being said about inline skating a few decades ago. And skateboarding. Whatever happened to them?
An op-ed piece, titled “Pickleball is the Worst” in a recent edition of the Washington Post currently is making the rounds on social media offering some history along with the snark. Similarly, there is a cartoon in the New York Times that shows a tortured and barren landscape with a “future pickleball site” sign cast off to one side and a caption reading: “Hold on! Stop working; the pickleball fad is over.”
Here is something to chew on: In an effort to placate both increasingly territorial and demanding tennis and pickleball aficionados, some cities around the country, notably Asheville, North Carolina, and Orlando, Florida, have superimposed regulation-sized pickleball courts within the footprint of existing public tennis courts.
The two sports share the space according to pre-arranged schedules. Evansville soccer fans may recall a similar hard-won arrangement where girls' and boys' soccer teams share fields along Vann Avenue, south of the Expressway.
Consider the math: Regulation tennis courts are measured at 60-by-120 feet. Pickleball courts are measured at 44-by-20-feet. It is no stretch to realize two pickleball courts can be established inside each tennis court: All it takes is some paint.
Wesselman Park has 12 tennis courts. Although I personally would like to see them removed in the name of the environment, in an effort to compromise, I suggest the city could add 24 pickleball courts (a figure promoted by interim parks director Steve Schaefer) right on top of those tennis courts without ever lifting a shovel.
I spoke with Wayne Simmons at Asheville Parks and Recreation about how this compromise was accomplished there and it did require getting the tennis people and the pickleball people to sit down at a table together.
And Asheville did pick up the expense of buying some pickleball nets on wheels (yes, it’s a thing. High-end versions are about $2,300 a pop, Simmons said).
Just guessing here, but somehow I think 24 portable nets (at a total cost of just under $10,000) would be, well, cheap compared to the current plan. Even buying a storage shed to hold those nets when not in use would be a comparatively cheap alternative to digging up the meadow and pouring concrete.
And what would it cost to buy a “temporary floor” to set up inside the Ford Center (think basketball) for the tournament play that the city feels is sure to come?
Evansville is notorious for not taking care of its existing assets – including the tennis courts in Wesselman Park which I understand are in disrepair.
About 40 years ago, the City of Evansville resisted mightily a call to put up a chain link fence around Wesselman Woods. Not to keep wildlife in, but to keep people, including vandals, from sneaking in.
Eventually that fence got built. But time has passed and it has fallen into grave disrepair. A drive along Morgan Avenue, past the north side of the woods and along Stockwell Road, past the east side of the woods, tells the tale.
It is an embarrassment. But it also is a powerful visual metaphor that defines this City’s historic disregard for maintaining its assets and attractions.
Sara Anne Corrigan, Evansville
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Letter: Will city maintain new pickleball courts? History says no.
