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.