The Clarence Town Board is moving forward with a plan to eliminate the tennis facilities at Town Place Park on Goodrich Road in order to add 2 pickleball courts to the existing 6.  We believe this decision has been made without thorough consideration of all the issues or adequate input from residents.

We are petitioning the town of Clarence to keep tennis at Town Place Park for the following reasons:

1. Town Place park is in the middle of a rapidly growing part of the town and should offer facilities for as many different activities as possible. There are other tennis courts in the town, but elimination of tennis at Town Place leaves only 2 other tennis courts north of Main Street (at Meadowlakes Park) for all of the residents in the northern part of the town. 
2. It doesn't make sense to have 8 pickleball courts at one park and none at any other park.  We don't have one park for basketball, one for baseball, etc. Parks should provide a variety of activities for families nearby.  Kids can ride bikes or walk to the parks and they don’t have to get their parents to drive them. Tennis and pickleball facilities should be at multiple parks to provide the best access of residents to both sports.
3. Eliminating the tennis courts only adds 2 pickleball courts to  the existing 6. There were 4 permanent pickleball courts and 2 dual use courts (for tennis or pickleball) previously. Converting the 2 remaining dual use courts to 4 dedicated pickleball courts adds only 2 pickleball courts to the existing 6 but eliminates the possibility of using the courts for tennis.
4. The decision to eliminate tennis at Town Place Park has been made without any effort to gather resident input.  The town's decision to eliminate tennis has been made based solely on the fact that many people utilize the pickleball courts at Town Place.  No effort has been made however, to seek input from residents to determine whether there is support to eliminate the tennis facilities. 
5. The town has not made an effort to quantify how many non-residents are using pickleball facilities at Town Place Park.  Supervisor Casilio was quoted in the Clarence Bee article "In a Pickle" (July 15th, 2020 edition) as saying "residents are calling him to say that those from nearby towns are the ones hogging the courts". This data is important as it is a known issue and the town may be providing pickleball facilities for non-residents at the expense of resident tennis players. 

We propose the following possible solutions to provide pickleball and tennis facilities equitably throughout the town.

The 4 courts at Sunset Park could be lined for dual use, then both parks could be used for either tennis or pickleball by residents in the respective neighborhoods. This would provide facilities in the northern and southern parts of the town. There would be 6 courts at Town Place (4 permanent, 2 dual use), and 4 dual use courts at Sunset, a total of 10 possible pickleball courts, 2 more than the 8 currently being planned. It would increase access to both sports, and would likely cost substantially less.  

Another option is to convert 2 of the tennis courts at Sunset Park into 4 dedicated pickleball courts, and line the 2 remaining tennis courts for dual use.