To the members of the Menlo Park City Council.
I am a 33 year resident of Menlo Park. I’ve enjoyed playing pickleball since its early days on the Peninsula when Palo Alto graciously supported the efforts of the Palo Alto Pickleball Club to introduce people to the sport, an effort that they continue to this day. Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the country because it is easy to learn, accessible to all ages and fun to play.
Menlo Park needs more pickleball courts NOW. For well over a year, Menlo Park pickleball players have continually requested that the city’s Parks and Rec expand the number of courts available for pickleball. As you probably know, the fastest and least expensive way to do this is by painting pickleball court lines on tennis courts thus enabling dual use of the courts by both tennis players and pickleball players. In the past year, many of Menlo Park’s neighboring communities have done exactly this while also creating scheduling arrangements that lets players of both sports share the courts. These shared arrangements seem to be working well.
Pickleball has a distinctive culture. Anyone is welcomed at a municipal pickleball court and invited to play. While I am a Menlo Park resident, I play regularly in Palo Alto and Mountain View. I also play for free in out of town courts when I’m on vacation. Players gather where there are multiple courts knowing that there will be others there to play with which is why Menlo Park pickleball proponents emphasize the need to have multiple courts concentrated in one or two areas instead of spreading single courts through different locations.
Trying to impose the tennis model of key purchase would be counter to Pickleball’s welcoming and open culture. Similarly limiting use of pickleball courts to Menlo Park residents would make the city an unpopular outlier in the Peninsula where other cities do not impose these restrictions.
Palo Alto has created a successful new model for providing financial support for the courts. For a modest fee, both residents and nonresidents are invited to become members of the Palo Alto Pickleball Club. Although you don’t need to be a club member to use the courts, players join not only support Mitchell Park’s lively PB community but also to gain access to clinics, classes, round robins etc that the club organizes. Club volunteer leaders work closely with Palo Alto’s Recreation Dept to help manage the courts and contribute financially to enhance Palo Alto’s pickleball infrastructure. I believe there
I understand why Menlo Park’s tennis players are reluctant to share the courts they have controlled for so many year. However, data collected about tennis court usage at Nealon Park shows that there are often unused courts at many times during a day. Menlo Park’s Park and Rec department can speak with neighboring city departments to learn from their experience how to set schedules and guidelines for shared court use.
While I appreciate Menlo Park’s plans to build dedicated pickleball courts, these plans push the addition of needed courts out for another two years. It’s hard to understand this position when there is an easier, faster and cheaper solution at hand. Encouraging play at Kelly Park is not a viable alternative to the current need either. Whenever I play there, often at prime morning play time, there are neither tennis nor pickleball players using the courts. Willow Rd commuter traffic creates substantial delays in getting to those courts during commuter hours. And it the winter, water collected on the eucalyptus trees sits on the courts and makes them unsafe for playing until the sun—if there is sun— dries them up mid-day.
I encourage you all to recommend expanding the dual use courts for tennis AND pickleball at Nealon Park— make it a pilot and just do it— ASAP.
Alison Elliott
The Willows
