Starting in February, the Linda Beach Tennis Courts will be converted to pickleball only courts and locked preventing use for other sports or activities through the end of this academic year and the vast majority of summer break.

We find this action by PRD unacceptable, inequitable and without precedent. 

Sign the below petition and demand that PRD hold their trial until they:

1. Explore other options for assessing and meeting the needs of the pickleball community that would not single out one neighborhood park and its' community members. 
2. Engage all impacted community members prior to changing the functionality of and access to any public recreation facilities, including prospective data collection, equitable use, objective markers of success and timing, and methods of community engagement and communication. 

Detailed Review: 

The decision to have pickleball ONLY at Linda Beach Courts prevents the entire lower Piedmont community from having walkable access to the tennis courts. This will have significant secondary impacts including, but not limited to: 

• Creates inequitable access to existing park facilities with loss of walkable access to tennis courts in lower Piedmont, loss of access to local pickleball courts in upper Piedmont and a negative impacting the quality of life of lower Piedmont tennis players and upper Piedmont pickleball players
• Consolidate all Piedmont tennis players and youth programming into upper Piedmont courts, negatively impact all players' access to tennis courts during peak hours, decreasing accessibility to the lower Piedmont community to youth tennis programing, and discouraging the lower Piedmont community from trying tennis
• Significantly increase traffic and loss of limited available parking at Linda Beach corridor during school pickup and drop off hours and sports practices. 16 players often utilize the space at the same time, with 15-30 minute game lengths there will be significantly increased car traffic in al already traffic dense/parking space limited area
• Potential noise complaints due to the reverberation of both the pickleball game and associated player noise off Oakland bridge

PRD’s unilateral, unprecedented change to the function of a public recreation facility was done without engaging the all impacted communities.  

• Historically, community participation in major decisions goes in both directions, with local officials reaching out for feedback and the community continually providing insight.  Extensive community outreach and engagement was undertaken in 2018 when the initial decision to trial a share of pickleball and tennis at the Beach was made.
• Despite encouragement from the Recreation Committee to engage neighbors and the community on the best use of the Beach tennis court, the Recreation Department has not directly outreached to the impacted neighborhood.
• PRD has not explored other options for extending pickleball in Piedmont that does not eliminate tennis for the Beach Courts and create inequitable neighborhood access to tennis (such as a shared location as is the current status).
  PRD has not provide data or information regarding their decision on duration, site choice, and design of this trial to Piedmonters. 
  PRD has announced that it will recommend these courts be stripped for pickleball only if their trial is successful, but is creating a biased trial with foundation for comparison.