Canyon tennis court shouldn’t be tossed aside
Ted Caldwell
Last week the city manager (Ken Frank) contacted members of the
Laguna Canyon Tennis Courts Assn. informing the players that the
Festival Board had made plans to use the tennis courts this summer in
connection with the 2003 summer season.
The specific planned use of the tennis facility implied the fences
would be coming down. Conceivably that would put an effective end to
the tennis facility that has been a significant part of the city’s
park and recreation program for 56 years.
During last year’s lease negotiations, the Festival requested that
the city incorporate the tennis facility as part of the Festival’s
lease. When the final draft of the lease was approved, the City
Council did authorize the Festival to draw up plans and arrange
financing for a building on the tennis court site supposedly for a
museum, exhibit hall or gallery so that local artists might exhibit
their work year round. The site might also include parking spaces and
offices for the Festival’s full-time staff.
As part of that decision, the City Council voted unanimously to
provide another tennis facility at an alternative location so that
those 100 to 200 people that frequently used the Canyon Courts would
be able to walk off the Canyon Courts and walk onto another similar,
if not comparable, facility. Regrettably, Frank has now informed the
tennis players there is simply no alternative site available. It was
the promise of the alternative tennis facility, however, that made
the Festival’s proposal palatable.
The Canyon Courts and the people that use the facility are not,
contrary to popular opinion, a privileged, clubby or elitist group.
Many of the habitues, including the writer, has played on those
courts for 30 years or longer. Granted, there is a camaraderie that
has naturally evolved around the courts, but perhaps more appealing
about the facility it that it is as close to a natural wilderness
area as can be approximated within the city limits of Laguna Beach.
From the Canyon Courts, one can look up at the surrounding
hillsides and see does and fawns grazing, coyotes scurrying after
rabbits, red-tailed hawks gliding above on off-shore breezes and the
widest possible variety of aboriginal flora, such as sage, heather
mustard, poppies and so much more. It is an enchanting experience,
unobstructed by a multi-level building or, heaven forbid, another
proposed parking structure.
Laguna Conservancy and other civic groups have explicitly
dedicated themselves to restricting development on the north and west
side of Laguna Canyon Road. The tennis players at the Canyon Courts
certainly agree with such a lofty and worthy goal.
It is truly a pity that the Festival does not agree with us.
Stopping development in this beautiful and environmentally sensitive
location should mean things stay exactly as they are now and have
been for 56 years.
* TED CALDWELL is a Laguna Beach resident.
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