HomeMy WebLinkAbout01-13-2015 BW1 del RioChristian, Kevin
From:
Sent:
To:
Mejia, Anthony
Tuesday, December 09, 2014 2:26 PM
Christian, Kevin
COUNCIL MEETING: t7 - �j197
ITEM NO.:- �,,,��
Subject: FW: Bring lights to Sinsheimer Tennis Courts!
For 01/13/15
Anthony J. Mejia, MMC I City Clerk
City of San Luis Obispo
990 Palm Street
San Luis Obispo, CA 93401
tel 1 805.781.7102
- - - -- Original Message---- -
From: Marx, Jan
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2014 6:29 PM
To: Vicente del Rio
Cc: Mejia, Anthony
Subject: RE: Bring lights to Sinsheimer Tennis Courts!
Please include this email as agenda correspondence for the budget goal hearings.
Thank you,
Jan Marx
DEC 0 9 2014
Mayor
Office of the City Council
City of San Luis Obispo
990 Palm Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 -3249 E imarx @slocity.org T 805.781.7120 slocity.org
From: Vicente del Rio [vdelrion @calpoly.edu]
Sent: Monday, December 08, 2014 4:55 PM
To: Marx, Jan; Rivoire, Dan; Christianson, Carlyn; Carpenter, Dan; Ashbaugh, John
Subject: Bring lights to Sinsheimer Tennis Courts!
To the San Luis Obispo City Council members:
I am writing to urge you to make lighting of the tennis courts at Sinsheimer Park a budgeted goal for 2015 -2017. The City
of San Luis Obispo needs to provide lighted courts for its residents because:
* The City only provides eight tennis courts to its residents (six at Sinsheimer Park, one at Islay Hill Park, and one at
French Park), and not one of those courts is lighted.
* The only lighted courts within city limits are at Cal Poly (which are intended for use by students, not the general
public) and SLOHS (which are of poor quality because they use very outdated technology). However, none of these are
really public and their use is conditioned by those institutions.
* The City's parks provide lighted facilities for soccer, football, rugby, lacrosse, baseball, softball, basketball, roller,
hockey, volleyball, and horseshoes - but not for tennis.
* The peak times for tennis court usage on weekdays are 8:00 a.m. to noon (for those who are free to play during the
day) and after 5:00 p.m. (for the majority of players, who work during the day and are only free to play in the evenings).
* Once daylight savings time ends, those of us who can only playin the evenings on weekdays have no City - provided
courts on which to do so.
* Lighting the City's existing tennis courts (especially the multi -court facility at Sinsheimer Park) is a much more cost -
effective way of increasing usable hours than would be the building of new, lighted tennis courts.
* Wealthy residents in the City can play on lighted courts at private clubs in SLO or Avila, but middle class residents
cannot afford private club membership, so the City needs to provide lights for them.
* Modern tennis court lights are specifically designed to light only the courts, preventing light pollution of the
surrounding area. As an example, consider the new lights at the Arroyo Grande High School courts (which anyone can
turn on for free with the push of a button).
* To prevent excessive noise late into the night, the lights could be timed to shut off automatically at a certain time (e.g.,
9:00 p.m.).
* The tennis community supports a pay -as- you -play system for lights, if that proves necessary. (Note, however, that we
have found the coin -box system at SLOHS to be very unreliable; a key system would work better. See the system for Soto
Park lights used by the Five Cities Tennis Association.)
For all of the above reasons, I urge you to please make lighting of the Sinsheimer Park tennis courts a budgeted goal for
2015 -2017.
Respectfully,
Vicente del Rio, Ph.D.
Professor, City and Regional Planning Department California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo
tel: (805) 756 -2572
email: vdelrion @calpoly.edu