Tag: PROS plan

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Alert

What is Most Important to You for Shoreline’s Future Parks?

The City of Shoreline is updating its Parks, Recreation, Open Space and Arts (PROSA) Plan. This plan, which is updated every six years, provides a 20-year vision and framework that will help decide how city money will be spent and what services will be offered.

Take the initial survey

Take their survey. Make sure you say that pickleball courts are very important to you.

When asked if there is anything else you would like to share about Shoreline parks and outdoor spaces, remember to request dedicated outdoor pickleball courts.

Keep in mind that you are helping Shoreline Parks plan its pickleball courts for the year 2030. Explain how Shoreline Parks should plan now to be able to accommodate the demand for pickleball courts it will face in 2030.

Share your vision on a map

Use the survey’s online map to add your ideas, comments, and facility needs related to specific locations. Click the “Like” button for existing comments that you support.

Get ready for more

This is just the start. The plan will be developed over the next 12 to 18 months. It is important that we ask for more pickleball facilities and programs repeatedly during the whole process.

Extra credit

Go talk to Shoreline’s PROS Plan team at upcoming events. Let them know how they should plan for pickleball’s growth over the next 10 years.

More information

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Alert

Action Alert: Help Define the Priorities for Auburn’s Parks and Recreational Facilities

What?

The City of Auburn is going to update their Parks, Recreation, and Open Space (PROS) Plan. The PROS Plan includes a six-year plan and 20-year vision for Auburn’s park system. It outlines goals and objectives, implementation strategies, capital improvements, and investment programs for the City’s parks, recreation and open space system.

If you think that Auburn will need more pickleball facilities over the next 6 to 20 years, this is your chance to say so, loudly and clearly.

How?

Share your insights via the Parks Department’s survey. City residents, patrons, and interested stakeholders are all invited to participate.

Here are a few hints, regarding this survey:

Question 4 will ask “What are the type of facilities that you most regularly use”. Do NOT select “tennis courts”. Instead select “Other” and type in “pickleball courts”. This will help the “pickleball” answers stand out from the “tennis” answers.

Use question 8 to describe in detail the type of pickleball facilities you would like to see in Auburn over the next 6 to 20 years. If you know of existing facilities that could serve as a model, please include links to them.

Please explain why such facilities will be needed. Coud it be that the number of pickleball players is growing exponentially, and that Parks Departments need to start planning accordingly?

What else?

Talk to all the pickleball players you know. Ask them to take action.

Share this web page with all your pickleball friends.

What next?

This is just the beginning of a long process. At the end of the survey, type in your name and email address so Auburn can keep you in the loop for the next step.

How important is it?

This updated PROS plan will define the Auburn Parks Department’s new goals for the medium and long term.

If the Parks Department’s new goals include your pickleball vision, we will be able to work together to realize these common goals over the next 20 years.

If the Parks Department’s new goals don’t include your pickleball vision, any significant pickleball request you make will be seen as a distraction from the Parks’ real goals. You will have to wait 6 or more years for the next PROS plan revision, to give it another shot.

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Alert News

No New Courts in Kirkland?

You have been heard

Kirkland has been gathering community input for over a year, asking us what we would like to see in their upcoming Parks plan. Those of you who were invited to the Focus Group Meetings were heard. The same is true for those of you who participated in the Community Conversations and in the Everest neighborhood online survey.

Consider this

The plan has about 20 pages of goals and objectives. one of those is to consider adding pickleball at Juanita Beach Park.

Level of Service

The plan suggests that Kirkland should have 1 tennis court per 3,000 people and estimates it has a current surplus of 3 tennis courts, which will be go down to no surplus tennis courts by 2026.

Unfortunately, the plan does not propose a similar analysis for pickleball courts. Why should the planning process be different for pickleball than for tennis?

You have not been funded

The plan draft concludes with Capital Improvement Projects divided into two lists.

The first list contains several funded projects that will cost $19,758,400.

The second, much larger, list of unfunded project contains an item titled “Construct New Pickleball Courts” with a price tag of $97,500.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to convince the Kirkland Parks Department to move the construction of new pickleball courts from the unfunded list to the funded list.

What should I do?

Ask that the Parks Department fund the construction of new pickleball courts. It’s in their plan. It’s cheap. They will not fund it unless enough people ask for it.

Ask that the Parks Department define “Level of Services” for pickleball. Why predict the need for tennis courts but not for pickleball courts?

How should I do it?

Email PlayItForward@kirklandwa.gov today.

Attend the virtual Public Hearing on May 25, 2022 at 7:00PM

Where can I find more information?

Here

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Alert

Help Plan the Future of Redmond Pickleball

Help Remond plan for pickleball growth over the next 10 to 20 years.

The previous plan dates back to 2017 and barely mentions pickleball at all. Let’s make sure the upcoming plan puts Redmond on the pickleball map.

What can I do?

  • Fill out this questionnaire by Wednesday, May 16th.
  • Attend the upcoming online community meeting on June 1st.
  • Contact Jeff Aken, Redmond Park Planning Manager, via email or by phone. Share with him your vision for pickleball facilities in Redmond, such as a pickleball complex with 12+ lighted courts. Send him pictures of other pickleball facilities that you admire and that you would like to see Redmond replicate.
  • Talk to other pickleball players who work, live or play in Redmond. Ask them to get involved. We’ll need everyone to pitch in.

That’s not enough. How else can I help?

Would you like help to organize Redmond pickleball players in their efforts to get pickleball facilities included in the upcoming Redmond Parks Plan? If so, contact the Seattle Metro Pickleball Association and we’ll put you in touch with people who have had similar experiences in Seattle, Bellevue, and Mercer Island. They will share their experience with you.

Where can I find more information?

Find out more about Redmond’s PARCC plan at https://www.letsconnectredmond.com/parcc.

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Alert

Action Alert: Support Bellevue Pickleball Players Asking for Better Outdoor Pickleball Court Lines (and Nets). Deadline: Tuesday, November 9, 3pm.

Summary

Bellevue pickleball players have been making steady progress in convincing the Bellevue Parks Board to support pickleball. They will be proposing short and long term solutions at the next Bellevue Parks Board meeting on Tuesday, November 9.

Right now, we need to express our support for their short-term solution of painting (better) pickleball lines on specific tennis courts.

What is going on

Bellevue Parks has been painting lines for a single pickleball court on a tennis court in multiple locations. This is inadequate because:

  • It is making poor use of the available real estate. You can easily fit two pickleball courts on a single tennis court.
  • It doesn’t take into account that pickleball as a strong social component that is only possible if a substantial number of pickleball courts are clustered together.
  • A tennis net, even if it is lowered, is not the same as a pickleball net. The net height is usually off and there is no opportunity for “around the post” shots.

It is much better to paint pickleball court lines on each side of the tennis net and provide permanent roll-away pickleball nets.

What to do

Please email the Bellevue Parks Board, with the subject line “Written Communications – November 9“, by Tuesday 3pm and ask them to line the tennis courts at Hilaire, Crossroads, Norwood and Lakemont Park to accommodate at least 2 pickleball courts per tennis court, and to allow permanent roll-away pickleball nets. All written comments received prior to 3pm on November 9 will be read or summarized into the record at the meeting.

If you want to do more

Check out three easy things to do today to ask Bellevue Parks for more pickleball courts.

Take this Bellevue Parks survey by November 8 and ask for more indoor and outdoor pickleball activities.

If you want to know more

To attend the 6pm Parks Board meeting on November 9, go to https://cityofbellevue.zoom.us/j/93884171236. The passcode will be 571753.

Check out Bellevue’s Parks and Open Space System Plan web page.

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Alert

Action Alert: Shape the future of the Bellevue Parks System

Do you dream of Bellevue having many sets of 6 or 12 dedicated outdoor pickleball courts in its parks system?

During a virtual Neighborhood Leadership Gathering on Thursday, Oct. 7 from 6:30 to 8:00pm, Bellevue Parks and Community Services staff will share the scope of the department’s many assets and services and the purpose of a master plan. You will have opportunities during the evening to share your priorities and dreams for the future of the Bellevue parks system.

RSVP Today: neighborhoodoutreach@bellevuewa.gov

More information: https://bellevuewa.gov/city-government/departments/community-development/neighborhoods/classes-and-events/neighborhood-leadership-gathering

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Alert

Tell Kirkland Parks: “More Pickleball Please”

The Kirkland Parks Department will be visiting Kirkland Parks to collect your parks and recreation stories in July and August. Look for a large blue human-sized butterfly. Tell it you would like to see more outdoor and indoor pickleball facilities in Kirkland.

Here is where you can find it next:

July 29 – 2 PM to 4 PM Lee Johnson FieldSprinkler Park
July 31 – 1 PM to 3 PM Marina Park SummerFest (KidZone)  
August 3 – 11 AM to 12 PM Juanita Beach Park Kids Concert (After)  
August 6 – 6 PM to 8 PM Lee Johnson Field Cornhole Tournament
August 7 – 11 AM to 1 PM Downtown Kirkland Kirkland Car Show
August 13 – 1 PM to 3 PM Totem Lake Park
August 18 – 3 PM to 5 PM Marina Park Wednesday Market

It is important that the Parks department hear from pickleball players at these events.

Please tell your friends.

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Alert

Help the Lynwood Parks Department Update Their 10-Year Plan

The City of Lynnwood updates its Parks, Arts, Recreation and Conservation Plan once every six years to ensure that programs, services, and recreation facilities are meeting the needs of community member.

They would like to know what you think. So, if you live, work or play in Lynnwood, take their Community Recreation Needs Survey and ask for more indoor and outdoor pickleball.

The city is already planning to add 6 pickleball courts at the South Lynnwood Park as part of their current renovation project. Please tell them that is a very good idea. And feel free to ask for more indoor and outdoor pickleball play opportunities.

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Alert

Time to Ask Kirkland Parks for More Pickleball

What is going on

Kirkland Parks Department has started work on its next comprehensive “Park, Recreation, and Open Spaces Plan“.  This 6-year plan will provide a vision for the continuation of high-quality recreation opportunities to benefit the residents of and visitors to Kirkland.

We need to make sure the Parks Department knows that pickleball players are grateful for the wonderful courts it created in 2019 at Everest Park and that we would love to see even more pickleball courts in Kirkland.

What you need to do NOW

Please email Mary Gardocki mgardocki@kirklandwa.gov and cc: eParks@kirklandwa.gov and let her know:

  • How grateful you are for the gorgeous outdoor dedicated pickleball courts that the Kirkland Parks department installed at Everest Park in 2019
  • How grateful you are that Parks updated their signage to embrace the pickleball culture of drop-ins where people take turns playing one game to 11
  • How busy these courts are and how grateful you would be if they could add 3 more courts next to the 3 original ones  
  • How wonderful it would be if they could expand indoor and/or outdoor pickleball support even further by [insert your idea here]

Make the message your own:

  • Talk about what you would like to see
  • If you live, work, shop or play in Kirkland, be sure you mention it

If email is not your thing, you can call Mary Gardocki and leave her a voicemail at (425) 587-3311.

What we will need to do later

In the next few months, expect the Kirkland Parks department to conduct an extensive community involvement effort including focus groups, meetings with key stakeholders, neighborhood and community-wide public meetings, surveys, website, and so on.

We will need to make sure we participate in those as well. If you spot one of those, please report it to info@seattlemetropickleball.com so we can spread the word around.

Let’s not wait for community involvement effort to start. Start emailing the Kirkland Parks Department now.