Does the city have a state approved housing plan in place yet? If not pickleball should be the lowest of priorities.

Notes from the 9/27 Parks & Recreation Commission meeting:
- City staff member: "We selected Kelly Park for Pickleball because tennis players do not want to play there.".
- A thirty-day survey of Nealon Park tennis courts identified that 90% of the time, at least one tennis court at Nealon Park is unused. The city has not conducted a similar survey for any of the 13 tennis courts.
- The survey confirmed 1,200 pickleball-hours/week at Nealon Park v. 120 hours per tennis court.
- City staff continues to (incorrectly) list that tennis key-fees generate $40,000/year. 2023 YTD key fees are under $20k and continue to drop (peaked at $45k in 2021) v. YTD non-key revenue of $106k.
- The PRC previously voted to expand pickleball via shared courts at Nealon and the City Council has failed to respond.

So this is stunning quote from Schott’s post: City staff member: "We selected Kelly Park for Pickleball because tennis players do not want to play there." Seriously? So picklers do want to play there because ??????? Or because tennis players don’t picklers should? I play at Nealon at least twice a week and seen the tennis courts full maybe once during that time. We need soundproofing, I feel for the neighbors, but shunting picklers over to the spots tennis players don’t want? Please….

Let's talk equity:

3 homeowners complained about the zip line being noisy last year: they locked it up indefinitely.

Apartment dwellers complain, call police, send emails to P&R and City Council: CRICKETS!!!!!

Come on Menlo Park, we can do better.

Many new players took up tennis during the pandemic (the sport has natural 6+ feet distancing) and there has been a huge post-pandemic tennis boom.

One of the peak tennis usage hours is weekdays at 6:00 p.m. This is the time when people typically get off work and go to play. Courts are extremely busy at this time. Courts #1 and #2 are busy with lessons. Note that courts #1 and #2 are the only courts on which lessons are allowed by the city.

Courts # 3 and #4 have been designated by the city as "public courts" (no lessons allowed).
There is usually a wait time for courts #3 and #4 at 6:00 p.m. To be clear, these tennis courts do tend to open up AFTER 8:00. But the point is that these tennis courts are extremely busy on weekdays between 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. There is a wait time for these courts during these peak hours.

The pickleball players are proposing to restripe court #4 to a pickleball/tennis dual-use court.
The problem with this proposal is that there will be 8 or more noisy pickle players on court #4 while tennis players are playing just 10 feet away on the adjacent court #3. That is simply not conducive to a proper quiet tennis atmosphere. Moreover, repainting a tennis court with pickelball lines creates distracting and confusing lines for the tennis players. No tennis players want that.

The shared court proposal is simply not feasible.

Do not remove or share any existing tennis courts at Nealon Park.

These are two separate sports that require separate dedicated courts. Lets respect and acknowledge that both sports are growing in popularity. As such, we need to conserve the existing tennis courts and build out new pickleball and tennis courts.