Pickleball, tennis debate continuing in Madeira

After more than 15 comments from residents, two proposed motions and nearly three hours of discussion, Madeira City Council has still not made a decision about the pickleball and tennis debate.

“Whatever decision is made here tonight, we are all still not going to agree on what the right thing is. Hopefully, we can all come to an agreement that we have been through a process that is at least fair and everyone has had a chance to have their opinions heard,” Mayor Melisa Adrien said at the council meeting at Madeira High School June 13.

In the end, council referred the issue to the Budget and Finance Committee, which will review the issue at its June 27 meeting. It will then go back to council for a final decision at a meeting in July.

The pickleball and tennis debate started when members of the 90-plus member Madeira Pickleball League approached the city about converting the tennis courts in McDonald Commons to pickleball courts, which are smaller and have shorter nets. Currently, the courts are lined for tennis and pickleball with permanent tennis nets.

With the possibility of losing one or two of the city’s four public tennis courts, a tennis support group formed and started collecting signatures of those in favor of saving the tennis courts. By the meeting, they had collected more than 560 names.

“We were hopefully that we might be able to play on dedicated regulation (pickleball) courts in our hometown. If that is your decision, we will rejoice. If you choose to maintain the status quo of tennis courts at McDonald Commons, we will have to move on to other venues where we will be welcomed with open arms,” said Jane Niehaus, a member of the Madeira Pickleball League.

Though most of the tennis supporters and some members of council were in support of multi-use courts, which would be striped for both and have portable nets, pickleball players said portable nets would not be a viable option.

“Madeira doesn’t have a whole lot of space. We have all managed to share. I know portable nets aren’t ideal. I understand that, but it seems to me that sharing encompasses what this community is about,” said Karen Dougherty a tennis supporter and a Madeira High School girls’ tennis coach.

The Parks and Recreation Committee made a recommendation to council to convert the two tennis courts into two tennis courts and four pickleball courts with portable nets for a cost of $20,000.

Representative to the committee and Councilman Mike Steur said the committee did a study and determined three tennis courts are enough to serve the needs of tennis players in the city.

Some tennis supports claimed that data was inaccurate. The tennis supporters have also claimed the city’s park usage survey and the sign-in sheet that was used to track tennis players last year were skewed toward pickleball.

Both sides pointed out there are places where the others could go to play tennis or pickleball. The tennis supporters said not all of the pickleball players are Madeira residents. The pickleball supporters said the next closest place for them to play pickleball is much farther than Sellman Park, which has two tennis courts.

“To say to pickleball players, ‘go somewhere else. You can go find court somewhere else. But we pay taxes here so we should keep getting to play tennis is Madeira.’ That’s just a double standard to me,” Steur said.

He made a motion to approve turning one of the tennis courts into two permanent pickleball courts, which has an estimated cost of about $20,000. The motion failed 3-4 with Steur, Vice Mayor Traci Theis and Councilwoman Nancy Spencer voting for it and Adrien, Councilman Tom Ashmore, Councilman Scott Gehring and Councilman Chris Hilberg voting against it.

Hilberg and Gehring both said they were not comfortable taking away a public amenity without knowing all the information.

Steur made another motion for the whole area to be resurfaced and restriped to allow for two tennis courts and four pickleball courts with portable nets.

After realizing the cost was unclear and the council did not know what type of nets would be best, Steur withdrew the motion. Council agreed to send the issue to Budget and Finance at its June 27 meeting.

“We are just asking for the issue to be put to bed” Niehaus said, adding the pickleball players have been playing on make shift courts for four years.

The length of the time the pickleball players have used the tennis courts was one of the arguments the tennis supporters used as to why the courts do not need to be converted.

“The longer this goes on the more divided this community is going to look like. We shouldn’t be picking winners and losers or sticking one against the other. We have to find a way to find common ground,” tennis supporter Jose Baldan said.

Want to know more about what is happening in Madeira? Follow Marika Lee on Twitter: @ReporterMarika

What is pickleball?

A paddle sport that combines elements of tennis, badminton and ping-pong that is played both indoors or outdoors on a badminton-sized court with a slightly modified tennis net.

Source: USA Pickleball Association

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How should Madeira resolve the pickleball/tennis court controversy?

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