Dear Editor:
This letter is in response to the article: Tennis Players at Hall Memorial Park fight to save courts from pickle ball conversion
The biggest argument for the tennis group is: “They are OUR courts and we are entitled to these forever.”
The courts are the property of the City of Milpitas and the City is responsible for making the best use of the space for the entire city. Not just the tennis community or even the local community, which may already have as many pickleball players as tennis players.
There are 25 tennis courts in Milpitas (including the 4 at Hall Park). All are within a 10 minute drive from Hall Park. There are 2 outdoor pickleball courts (excluding Hall Park) in Milpitas. The 2 courts do not have lights for nighttime play.
The number of pickleball players in Milpitas may already exceed the tennis count after only one year.
The only city park courts far enough away from residents to avoid noise issues are Gill and Hall Park. The 3 courts at Gill Park are heavily used by the tennis community.
Hall was selected for the Pickleball Pilot Program due to its distance from residential homes and low tennis usage.
Hall has been a tremendous success! By this past summer we were experiencing 70+ players waiting to share the 6 pickleball courts (24 players at a time playing doubles). From 6 pm to 10 pm, there would be about 150 different people playing pickleball each night! Meanwhile, the tennis courts would be mostly empty!
Check the usage data collected by the City, not the misinformation presented by the tennis community.
Data for daytime usage at Hall and Gill for pickleball is comparable to the nighttime pickleball usage volume. We are talking about 300 different people playing pickleball each day! And pickleball usage is continuing to grow at a very rapid rate.
Usage data was collected over several months by City employees keeping a low profile.
The data supported all courts being used for pickleball.
From the beginning of the year, the Milpitas Pickleball Club recommended at least one tennis court remain at Hall Park. We felt it was appropriate, given the history of tennis at Hall park and the willingness of the tennis & pickleball communities to work together. Our objective from the beginning has been to be a good community member and not just lookout for our own best interest.
I have had interactions with some of the tennis leaders to share our direction. I have suggested the possibility of using MHS tennis courts for Milpitas residents during non-school hours. This is an arrangement used by many cities in the area (Palo alto, San Jose, Saratoga, etc.). Given that several members of the current Milpitas City Council had promoted their past MUSD experience and their ability to work together on common interest, it seems like a reasonable topic to approach. I have shared this with some members of the city, but not all. This is where city council leadership is needed.
Despite what the tennis community has stated, they have had many opportunities to participate in Hall Park usage discussion.
There were posters all over Hall Park prior to finalizing the pilot program in 2022. No one from the tennis community took the time to participate.
There were posters and other notices from the city advertising the September 25, 2023 community meeting. I personally sent a copy of the community meeting to one of the tennis leaders. I wanted the tennis community to be involved in the discussion! No one from the tennis community showed up (maybe one).
My understanding is of the approximately 200 people that responded to the online survey, 60 identified as tennis players. How is it possible that the tennis community was not aware of the survey when 30% were tennis players?
The tennis community seems to feel we should go away until the city finds available property, funds to buy the property at $1 million plus for only 8 courts. You want us to drive 30+ minutes to another city with already crowed courts? Empty tennis courts exist in Milpitas and are only a 6 – 10 minute drive, if needed.
Members of the tennis community are posting on the Milpitas Pickleball Club facebook attempting to start arguments. Posts like: “It doesn’t matter if there are a million pickleball players waiting. You don’t take away the tennis courts just because nobody is playing for certain day/night.”
Perhaps they should show us the same respect and understanding we have shown them.
Stephen Balsbaugh
President of Milpitas Pickleball Club
Steve B said:
“Our objective from the beginning has been to be a good community member and not just lookout for our own best interest.”
Does taking 3 tennis courts fair and not at your best interest???
Who do you think are you to suggest that?
Steve B: You are asking for a ‘respect’ and advocating to take 3 of the tennis courts away? Where is your common sense there?
Hi Guest/Steve B,
I understand that you have a good idea to solve the problem of pickleball in Milpitas, and I’m glad to hear it! Here are a few benefits of moving pickleball to Milpitas High: (You have a solution for growing pickleball, but you need to think outside the box. Killing Tennis at hall memorial park is not the answer.)
1. Noise pollution will go away from Hall Memorial Park. This will help residents of La Honda Drive and Hermina Street, and there will be no disturbance to the neighborhood.
2. Traffic issues in the Hall Memorial Park neighborhood will be resolved. This will help the entire neighborhood, and there will be no traffic issues for residents.
3.Tennis players at Hall Memorial Park will get their mojo back. More than 60% of tennis players have stopped playing tennis due to court unavailability. Moving pickleball to Milpitas High will help them to stay fit, promote good health, and motivate them to play again.
4.Milpitas pickleball players won’t have to drive 30 minutes away to play. This will save them time and money, and it will also make pickleball more accessible to people in Milpitas.
5.Tennis players who have to play pickleball while they wait for tennis courts will be able to get their courts back. This will reduce the crowd at tennis courts and make it easier for tennis players to play.
6.Moving pickleball to Milpitas High will motivate Milpitas High students to play pickleball as well. This will introduce pickleball to a new generation of players and help to grow the sport.
I believe that moving pickleball to Milpitas High is a great idea, and I hope that you will be successful in your efforts to make it happen & we will support you.
Steve Te, you suck at tennis so you should stop playing.
@MPC ‘LOL’
It doesn’t matter I suck or I play well…I voice my opinion and THAT is what matters in our tennis community.
I don’t play any racket all sports but the pickle ball people seem kind of hateful.
“Perhaps they should show us the same respect and understanding we have shown them.”
Didn’t Tennis community show respect to pickleball community for past 14 months by allowing them to run the pilot program successfully? And now you are showing disrespect to us by taking 3 tennis courts. Pickleball community never show respect to tennis players as they cross tennis courts during a play.
Tennis courts, pickleball courts, basketball courts, soccer fields all belong to the entire community, it does NOT belong to just the tennis players, pickleball players or any particular group. Base on the data collected and careful study, if there are more demands from community for certain sport, with limited budget, the city would, as in this case, repurpose the pool of space accordingly.
Hall Park is a bad choice for pickleball pilot in the first place. The City had not done a thorough research before choosing Hall Park, as the Hall park tennis courts were very well used by the tennis players and it has been a great psychological relief for the tennis players during Covid years as well.
This poor decision made Tennis community to face lot of difficulties to find courts for availability to play at Hall Park & at times the players have to wait long hours or quit playing. With so much of disappointment, the tennis players had respected & welcomed the City’s pickleball pilot program for 14 months. Now the Milpitas City is after converting all 4 tennis courts to pickleball courts. The Milpitas City should give back all the tennis courts back to the tennis community and plan for alternative places for pickleball courts.
NOTE: The pickleball people are verbally using abusive words when requested kindly to use the pickleball courts door to enter. They always use the tennis courts door to enter & stop the tennis games that are going on. This is happening from last 14 months.
****** SAVE TENNIS COURTS ******
“NOTE: The pickleball people are verbally using abusive words when requested kindly to use the pickleball courts door to enter. They always use the tennis courts door to enter & stop the tennis games that are going on. This is happening from last 14 months.”
Both doors are for ALL players to enter.
Common courtesy is wait for the point in play to be completed before walking pass the court. Walking on the court when the point is in play is a big “no” but require Pickeball players to go though the other gate is absurd. Especially open courts are in the center. Tennis players feel free to do the same….
There is a difference between request & require, just want to emphasize on pickleball players never wait for the point to be completed, in turn the tennis players on the two courts are forced to stop their play, which is not at all showing courtesy.
“pickleball players never wait for the point to be completed”
I personally stopped and waited for the point to be completed before walking through a Tennis court or a Pickleball courts. Vice versa, 99% of the time folks(Tennis or Pickleball players) waited for our point to be completed before walking across. So “pickleball players never wait for the point to be completed” is a rare occasion for me. Why? it would also be an issue for pickleball players(not just tennis).
Also, I know of no pickleball player request tennis players to enter through a different gate – segregation is outdated.
Steve P., it is not about segregation. You may see it that way, but think, been polite and courteous with each other’s sport is how I see it. There are two different sports that share the courts and each side has an entrance. I need not have to say much more.
Yes, it is “nice” for pickleball folks to walk around to the pickleball side and not interrupt BOTH pickleball games and tennis games in play, not just tennis. But unless the city post sign to indicate pickleball players enter the other gate and vice versa, no one should request any players to walk around to the other gate. Park parking lot and public restroom is at the tennis entrance. By enter either gate, one could interrupt the play of existing pickleball plays or tennis plays so leave it to the individual to make the choice. As I mentioned NO pickleball players ever complain about tennis players enter through pickleball courts gate (and it does happened now and then).
Well written article. I have nothing against tennis players or pickle ball players. I believe they should each have designated courts but pickle ball must be further away from homes. I live near Robert Browne Park that has tennis courts less than 70 feet from my house. We can tolerate the tennis players, though at times they also be loud. But people have been bringing their own pickle ball equipment to the tennis courts and play for hours. It is an extremely loud sport, as you’ve stated. It needs to be banned from tennis courts that our too close to homes. The city should set up designated courts for for them further away from homes!!
“But people have been bringing their own pickle ball equipment to the tennis courts and play for hours.”
Pickleball demands from Milpitas and surrounding Bay Area residents are exploding. Last Friday morning around 10:30AM, there were 41 pickleball players at Hall, sharing 6 courts. At the same time, the 2 remaining tennis courts were sitting idle. Without enough pickleball courts, folks are resorting to setting up temporary courts to play. As you mentioned, sometime, in area that are too close the residential houses.
“The city should set up designated courts for for them further away from homes!!”.
Agree 100%. With big enough budget, ideally, obtain lands/buildings and build new pickleball courts far enough from residential houses. Reality wise, Milpitas currently has a pickleball budget of $100,000. Just enough funding to resurface and convert a tennis park to pickleball courts, upgrade pickleball nets and perhaps improving gate entrances, implementing courts queuing system….
Also, as Stephen Balsbaugh mentioned, there are 25 tennis courts in Milpitas. However,
the only city park courts far enough away from residents to avoid noise issue are Gill and Hall Park. The 3 courts at Gill Park are heavily used by the tennis players. So, currently, Hall Memorial Park courts is the only logical choice of a dedicated pickleball park with night lighting for the entire Milpitas community.
Steve P.,
Please read my response below. I believe it applies to you as well.
Steve Balsbaugh, after reading your article, here’s my response to some of them.
“The courts are the property of the City of Milpitas and the City is responsible for making the best use of the space for the entire city. Not just the tennis community or even the local community, which may already have as many pickleball players as tennis players.”
>> public courts and parks are property of the city that are built for residents of Milpitas to enjoy. Your argument of “Not just the tennis community or even the local community” with pickleball only shows that you are so bias in placing pickleball above all. Did you know that city of Milpitas has a department called “Recreation & COMMUNITY Services”? In case you did not know, here is the URI where you can read the Mission (very first paragraph).
https://www.milpitas.gov/180/Recreation-Community-Services
“There are 25 tennis courts in Milpitas (including the 4 at Hall Park). All are within a 10 minute drive from Hall Park. There are 2 outdoor pickleball courts (excluding Hall Park) in Milpitas. The 2 courts do not have lights for nighttime play.”
>> There are now 2 tennis courts at Hall Park since pickleball took over 2 of them (6 pickleball courts). You also did not mention the 6 pickleball courts at the Milpitas Sport Center.
“Hall has been a tremendous success! By this past summer we were experiencing 70+ players waiting to share the 6 pickleball courts (24 players at a time playing doubles). From 6 pm to 10 pm, there would be about 150 different people playing pickleball each night! Meanwhile, the tennis courts would be mostly empty!”
>> From your statistics of the 70+ and 150+ pickleball players who play the sport every night, it is unlikely that the majority of them are residents of Milpitas. Many of these players are from neighboring cities who come here for the pickleball courts. If this is the case, then that is a problem that should be addressed to and solved by other cities and not to the detriment of the tennis player populace in Milpitas. Moreover, pickleball and tennis peak times do not necessarily overlap all days of the week. Just because tennis players don’t happen to be playing at the same time does not necessarily mean those courts are not being in use.
“From the beginning of the year, the Milpitas Pickleball Club recommended at least one tennis court remain at Hall Park. We felt it was appropriate, given the history of tennis at Hall park and the willingness of the tennis & pickleball communities to work together. Our objective from the beginning has been to be a good community member and not just lookout for our own best interest.”
>> Since the agreement was to let pickleball use two courts for the pilot program, with the end of the program, it is lawful and courteous for the courts to be returned back to the tennis community. And, since the tennis courts were originally installed in Hall Park as tennis courts, to prevent further bad blood between the tennis and pickleball communities, entirely new courts should therefore be made for pickleball usage. Furthermore, I believe that the survey that was handed out was conducted in a biased manner –– given predominantly to avid pickleball players, with questions more catered towards the pickleball community than to the tennis community (more on this later).
“There were posters and other notices from the city advertising the September 25, 2023 community meeting. I personally sent a copy of the community meeting to one of the tennis leaders. I wanted the tennis community to be involved in the discussion! No one from the tennis community showed up (maybe one).”
>> Thank you for trying to include the tennis population by sending it to one individual. Unfortunately, that personal invitation was given out right before the meeting, and thus most affected people could not join, as they had prior plans (be it work or family) for the evening. Additionally, the posters and notices that advertised the community meeting were posted predominantly on the pickleball court sides, which were not commonly visited by the tennis community.
“My understanding is of the approximately 200 people that responded to the online survey, 60 identified as tennis players. How is it possible that the tennis community was not aware of the survey when 30% were tennis players?”
>> I received the survey not from the pickleball community, but from a tennis player who shared it with me. When I looked at the survey, the questions were geared towards the pickleball community–– questions like how many more courts do you want to convert from tennis courts, etc. I did not complete the survey as there was no option to select 0 for such a question. In addition, there wasn’t a question on if they should return the courts back to the tennis community. To me, this survey was only meant for pickleball players.
“The tennis community seems to feel we should go away until the city finds available property, funds to buy the property at $1 million plus for only 8 courts. You want us to drive 30+ minutes to another city with already crowed courts? Empty tennis courts exist in Milpitas and are only a 6 – 10 minute drive, if needed.”
>> As you said earlier yourself, the other tennis courts from Gill Park are heavily in use. Now you want to send all of the tennis players from Hall to those “heavily” used courts. So your rationale is that it is not okay for pickleball players to wait for their turn to play, but it is okay for tennis players to invade other tennis courts that are being used and wait? Pickleball games have shorter duration times compared to the average tennis match. Thus, it would be an exponentially longer wait for tennis players to be able to play on a free court.
“Perhaps they should show us the same respect and understanding we have shown them.”
>> What respect are you showing to the tennis community by wanting to take the remaining tennis courts in the park, after taking half of their courts for the pilot program? This isn’t respect. It isn’t courtesy as well. I see it as being greedy and not satisfied by what was already given to you.
Hello Sol,
You are correct that pickleball is now played on 2 of the 25 tennis courts in Milpitas. That leaves 23 tennis courts in Milpitas (all within 10 minutes of Hall Park.
The Milpitas Pickleball Club did a usage survey of all 25 courts in Milpitas on Wednesday night (Oct 25 at 8 pm). Pickleball was being played on 2 tennis courts (6 pickleball courts) at Hall Park and 1 tennis court (2 pickleball courts) at Browne Park. Some of the tennis players at Browne Park are also pickleball players and they work together on sharing a court.
There were 53 tennis players on 22 courts and 87 pickleball players on the 3 tennis courts (67 at Hall, 14 at Browne on 1 tennis court and 2 teenage girls hitting a pickleball on a court with only a tennis net at Dixon Landing. Hence more pickleball players playing on the 2 courts at Hall Park than all the tennis players on all the other (22) available tennis courts in Milpitas. There were 6 empty tennis courts. We took photos which confirm all the data stated.
The Milpitas Sports Center Auditorium is available for pickleball about 6-8 hours per week (when they are available), requires a fee and does not equate to the outdoor courts that are available about 15 hours each day at zero cost. The MSC courts are not correctly marked for pickleball play and some have different color lines on a single court.
The vast majority of pickleball players at Hall Park are Milpitas residents. I’m sure the ratio for tennis, soccer and pickleball are all very similar.
I didn’t have any input on the survey questions. I would assume the questions were largely driven by the usage data collected by the city. The bias you perceive is most likely a reflection of the data collected.
You are misinformed about my invitation only being sent the night before the Aug 25th meeting. It was sent to one of the tennis leaders on Aug 9th. I did want the tennis community to be present at the Aug 25th meeting. I still have the message on my phone.
Speaking for myself, I feel the best solution for Hall Park is for one tennis court to be dedicated to tennis, two tennis courts (6 pickleball courts) to be dedicated for pickleball and the remaining tennis court to be dual marked and shared between tennis & pickleball. I would specify times when one of the sports has priority for the shared court(s) to minimize conflict. The allocation would be balanced.
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the situation in a respectful way with you individually or with a group of tennis players. We should be able to come up with a solution where neither sport is banished from Hall Park.
I would like to add several comments to Steve B.’s response.
Regarding to The Milpitas Sports Center Auditorium 6 temporary courts, beside the required pay memberships, limiting hours because the same space is also use for volleyball and basketball, pickleball courts are not available during the summer. Summer time this space is use for kids’ activities.
BTW, none Milpitas residents can use Milpitas Sports Center Auditorium. Sharing space within Milpitas and with surrounding communities is important.
Regarding to the minority of none Milpitas residents using Milpitas courts, the vice versa is also happened. I know many Milpitas pickleball players go to different courts in neighboring cities (Fremont, San Jose) to play, looking for different challenges, styles of play. No doubt that many tennis folks are doing the same inter-cities playing. If I remembered correctly, many none Milpitas residents tennis players voiced their concerns about Hall conversion during the September commission meeting.
Yes, the city did their homework by statistically looking at the least use tennis court for pickleball pilot program.
They did take into the neighborhood noise concern by only selecting either Gill or Hall park. These two locations are the furthest away from residential housing.
Due to heavy tennis usage at Gill Park, they did take tennis players into consideration and not selecting Gill park for the pickleball pilot program and later, permanent pickleball courts.
They did do an analysis on Milpitas residents vs none Milpitas residents usage of courts.
A correction to my previous post. The community meeting was Oct 25th and not Aug 25th.
Steve
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