City To Open Courts To Other Sports- A Plea to Fight This

Mark and the group,

Many of you are probably aware of the issue that is facing the city of Seattle. Other groups would like to recreate on tennis courts for various other spots such as dodge ball, hockey, etc. The rationale is that these courts are not used often enough to maintain them solely as tennis facilities. This has to seem like a slippery slope in that once the gates are open, all sorts of other groups will want to join in legally and illegally. Then we will probably face a huge problem policing these facilities and how to reconcile the hostilities that could ensue.

The tennis players in the city have less than a month to plead our case, otherwise we might find that we will be sharing our limited facilities with who knows what. Since I live near the courts at 72nd and 12th NE, I have seen what illegal multiuse can do to courts that have been resurfaced within the last few years. These courts are clearly suffering. There are large divots that have been taken out of the courts due to hockey players, skaters, locals running their dogs within the courts. The city invested a fair amount of money to upgrade these courts using our tax dollars and now after a short period of time they are already in poor shape. If this idea was to pass, illegal activity could make often used courts like those at 72nd N.E. unplayable, and then the city could legally open these to the same groups that destroyed them as tennis courts. Talk about the cart before the horse!

I'm hoping that members of this group will be interested in organizing to help influence the city to reject the idea of making certain courts multiuse and look at other alternatives for these other smaller interest groups. Given the difficulty in getting courts in Seattle, I'm hopeful that we can put an organized proposal to the city. If it also means that we can get more consideration in fixing courts in the future, so much the better.  Let's organize around this issue and let the city know how we feel.

Barry Levine

Roosevelt area of Seattle