Presentation at Parks, Greenways, and Recreation Commission Meeting 2-15-2022
Speaker/Presenter: D.C. Willis (CH Town Resident)
I would like to thank Phil Fleischmann and the Parks and Rec Department, as well as the Parks, Greenways, and Rec Commission for taking seriously the concerns of the public tennis-playing community about the terrible condition and number of our public tennis courts.
Over the past many months, Parks and Rec has given their time for regular meetings with us, which we appreciate. At Ephesus Park, we’re grateful for benches, court numbers, a squeegee if nobody take it, patching of some of the many cracks, trimming of tree branches, and repair of lighting. We look forward to a backboard we’ve been missing since 2013, the promised temporary resurfacing of the courts we have left there, and the eventual re-do of all the Ephesus courts to mitigate drainage and soil problems. Currently there are only three playable courts at Ephesus and we’d really like to have the six we had prior to the appropriation of two of them for pickleball without any community input in 2013.
Long-awaited improvements at Cedar Falls tennis courts are in the works, and with renewed attention to the public’s needs, we’ll have the six full-sized courts. That’s actually a far cry from what a previous Parks and Rec Director envisioned as a tennis center at Cedar Falls, but at least we won’t lose any courts. Improvements have also been scheduled for Hargraves Tennis Courts.
In a conversation with the Town Manager last spring, he agreed that putting maintenance into the Town budget would be a good thing. Here in 2022 we are spending 2/3rds bond money on maintenance. I wish it were being spent on increasing our supply of tennis courts!
Thank you.
