HomeMy WebLinkAbout111220 Linda Holmes
Parks and Recreation Council
Danville, California
Re: Osage Tennis courts
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I recently viewed the October 14 meeting on your video. Thank you for making access possible.
In that meeting a letter in support of converting tennis courts to pickleball courts was read and then
action was taken to further address that request at the November meeting. I would ask that this letter
be addressed at that November meeting also.
I am writing this letter to share with you our concern about limiting access to the Osage Courts with the
pickleball proposal. Danville has a very limited number of tennis courts SRVHS, MVHS, Diablo Park and
Osage. The sets of courts on the high school’s grounds have lights, but are not available during the day
because of security. There are only two courts at Diablo Park, local tennis leagues require a minimum of
three courts as well as restroom access in order to complete matches timely. Using the four Osage
courts in a competing sport would be devastating to our local tennis teams.
I am a board member of the San Ramon Valley Tennis Club. We have been in existence since
1968 (over 50 years) as a local public tennis club. Historically, we have used both the MVHS and Osage
courts. We have rented those courts from the Town since our inception. Our organization has worked
with the Town to maintain the courts, and watch over them as if they were our family. Our three
leagues are weekly daytime leagues and we have been proactive with the town in renting, maintaining
and utilizing the courts. We have 11 teams throughout the year (September through May), and because
of school security we have had to give up access to the MVHS 4 public courts, thus limiting our teams’
access to only the four Osage Courts.
We have worked hard to comply with the needs and requests of the town. We provide you with waivers
for each of our members, as well as liability waivers for our opponents that come to the Osage Courts.
As you are aware, our membership is majority of Danville (proper) members, so those residents that pay
rec fees are the majority representative of our club.
Mr. Proctor’s letter was in favor of converting some courts to pickleball courts: citing low startup costs,
low maintenance, facility utilization, school use, and reversibility back to tennis courts. He also
suggested tournaments could be brought in as revenue generation. I can understand his enthusiasm
for this new sport; however, Danville does not currently have adequate tennis courts that are available
during daytime hours. Mr. Proctor’s letter uses pickleball conversions at two country clubs (Crow
Canyon and Blackhawk) as examples. Conversion of courts in private clubs (where each of those clubs
have over 12 tennis courts) is not quite an equitable assessment. Mr. Proctor’s letter did not consider
that his proposal would severely impact our local tennis teams to the extent that organized local public
league play might be impossible or impractical. We respectfully ask the council to protect our local
tennis clubs’ ability to continue to use our scarce tennis court resources.
Thank you for your thoughtful considerations,
Linda Holmes
San Ramon Valley Tennis Club
925-788 4154 c