Pickleball

I've seen some conversation about pickleball. The complaint of some: "why would you invest in that when the budget is tight?"

In response, I'd say: "if we want both long term fiscal health AND a great City to live in, this is exactly the type of project we should be investing in."

I certainly recognize that times are tough. We've lost millions of dollars in funding from senior levels of government. We need to spend more on roads and police. And local families and businesses can't afford huge tax increases.

At the same time, physical recreation is very important in a community. It is a huge contributor to physical and mental health. It creates opportunities for socialization. And it lets people enjoy where they live.

And during challenging economic times: people are less able to afford expensive hobbies and travel. Having affordable, accessible public recreation becomes even more important.

Challenging times shouldn't signal to a City "stop creating opportunities for your residents." What they SHOULD signal is "be a lot smarter with the money you put into opportunities."

The pickleball project is smart money. It's receiving a large amount of funding from private sources rather than requiring taxpayers to finance it all. It's being driven by volunteers, which means it is meeting a clear demand in our community. It will be free for the public to use. And it is making use of an existing facility that rarely gets used, instead of creating a new facility to maintain.

I was proud to support this project.

---

Some information about the pickleball project:

• Pickleball has a strong, vibrant club that has been working towards getting a court since at least 2017

• I've joined the club for an evening of play several times. Every time I have, there has been a long wait between games due to the courts being full.

• Pickleball is a sport that is growing fast, largely because it is very accessible. People with a wide variety of physical abilities can play it. It is also very affordable: the equipment is low cost.

• Council committed $55,000 towards creating outdoor pickleball courts. This will cover about half the cost. The pickleball club will fundraise the rest.

• Pickleball will be re-purposing the tennis course near Legion Field (west of the Leisure Centre). As they are now, these courts are hardly ever used.

• Volunteers with the pickleball court already have and will continue to put significant work into this project.

---

Throughout my time on Council, I've been a big champion of getting this project going. That's because it makes sense to me. But also because it is connected to what I promised during my campaign.

During the campaign, I wrote that we should continue investing in making our community better. However, we shouldn't currently be investing in "Big Shiny Projects": big, expensive facilities. Instead, our current focus should be on partnering with community volunteers to make small projects happen. You can see this position paper here.

I also made a promise to the Pickleball Club: that if they continued to see growth and if they brought forward a project that made fiscal sense and which had significant non-city resources behind it, I would support it.

I'm very willing to stand behind the values I expressed in my campaign. And I'm proud to have kept my promise about this project.

Thanks for reading!

-Dylan