Pickleball is popular. Yet Phoenix and Scottsdale drag their heels on more courts
About a year ago, our group of pickleball players submitted petitions to Tempe, Phoenix and Scottsdale.
Scottsdale has no courts south of Indian Bend Road.
We presented our case to the Scottsdale City Council to add courts, including an architectural rendering. No action has been taken by the council.
We presented a petition to the Phoenix Parks and Recreation Board to add four courts at Herberger Park, where the four existing courts often have more than 30 players waiting to play.
Our plan was to add the courts by converting the two existing tennis courts to four pickleball courts. This can be done for a few thousand dollars, as the Arizona Country Club has shown.
We pointed out that Paiute Park in Scottsdale, a mile from Herberger, has two seldomly used tennis courts to take the place of the courts that would be converted at Herberger.
We have spoken at two meetings of the board.
The board ordered staff to study our request, but linked it to a study of the future of pickleball and tennis for the entire city.
No time frame was mentioned. Nothing has been done.
We had another petition to present to Tempe regarding the North Tempe Multi-Generational Center: The gym floor had creases that caused the ball to bounce awry and players were blinded by the early morning sun coming through the windows.
When we called Tempe asking about submitting the petition, the city went into action. We got a call from the center director, Rick Oliphant, and an email from the head of city services.
Within months, Tempe blocked the windows and installed a new floor! The old floor was 16 years old.
I am confused. Why has Tempe been so responsive and helpful and Phoenix and Scottsdale so indifferent?
Nelson Strasser, Phoenix
GOP is using fentanyl to play politics
People overdosing on fentanyl is a serious problem in this country. We need serious people to present real solutions.
Unfortunately, the Republicans in our state Legislature offer neither.
Laurie Roberts is right when she describes their most recent legislation as hollow. It basically says that fentanyl is a problem and that something should be done.
So, why didn’t Sen. Christine Marsh’s bill to provide fentanyl test strips to college kids get a hearing?
Maybe they’re not smart enough to understand that the problem is not fentanyl, but rather the overdose deaths that result from the unwitting consumption of products laced with fentanyl – a common occurrence.
Test strips would most definitely save lives. So, why no hearing?
More letters: Legalizing marijuana was a huge mistake
The Republicans don’t really care about fentanyl except for how it can be used to attack Democrats.
One example is Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming at a hearing that fentanyl seizures at the border are way up under the Biden administration.
She meant it as a criticism, because she is too ignorant to recognize that more seizures means less fentanyl on our streets.
A hollow, heartless shell is what today’s Republican Party really is. Republicans would rather burn it down than govern.
Dan Peel, Scottsdale
Services are starving, despite a surplus
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, informs us that the office needs more money to perform its duties effectively.
He describes how quite a few administrations before his have begged for additional funds.
There have been stories of insufficient funds to support public safety in rural Arizona, which includes policing and emergency services.
And after a rough winter, there are too many potholes. They can’t all be fixed at once.
The obvious pattern here is that Republicans elect legislators who hate government and starve government. When government can’t function, government is blamed.
I blame the Arizona Legislature for sitting on a huge surplus as services suffer.
I guess an efficiently running government does not excite the base.
Ann Adams, Payson
Don't I get a say in what schools teach?
In response to Arizona education superintendent Tom Horne’s column on April 15, I have a question.
I am white, female and 67 years old.
I have paid taxes to support public schools for nearly 50 years. I have no children.
Why do I not get a say about what is taught in our schools in Arizona?
Public education is not just for the parents of children; it is for the children of the society in which we live.
It is not for indoctrinating students in any political, religious or social beliefs, but rather to teach them critical thinking and historic facts.
Horne used many words such as “purportedly,” which means he has no facts to back up his statements.
He cites a school in Cupertino, Calif., but doesn't cite a reference.
He references Marxism, but I don't think he really knows what it is, or he would not have cited the Soviet Union and East Germany as “socialist” when they haven’t existed for years and they never were truly communist or socialist.
These countries are oligarchies, run by tyrants like Stalin and Putin. I studied Marxism. It is a utopian ideology and unlikely to ever exist in any country in its true form as intended by Marx.
Humans by nature are competitive and, as a whole, unlikely to ever want total equity for all.
Rennae Ward, Peoria
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix, Scottsdale drag their heels on building pickleball courts
