Opponents of Seattle Parks‘ plan to convert former Lincoln Park tennis courts into six pickleball courts gathered today for what you might call a pre-protest. 16 people met up by the park’s main lot, some with signs, before standing along Fauntleroy Way to wave them.
They were strategizing for what they hope will be a sizable protest at the park at 11 am next Saturday (October 21st). They say they’re not opposed to pickleball, just opposed to this location for courts. Their flyers to publicize the upcoming protest are headlined “We Love Pickleball! But Not at the Expense of Seattle’s Biodiversity and Human Respite.”
The biodiversity reference is in relation to birds in the park, who court-conversion opponents fear will be chased away by the loudness of pickleball and by court lighting (which may or may not be installed following the conversion, Parks has told us). Opposition organizer Kersti Muul says she has an appointment to meet with the City Attorney’s Office to discuss her contention that the court conversion is not exempt from State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) review; the city says it is because pickleball is not a change in use from the site’s previous status as tennis courts. This is a photo texted by a reader, showing Parks already has cleared the ex-courts of materials that had been stored there:
The conversion plan announced a month ago surprised people because local pickleball players were expecting Parks to make good on a promise to add pickleball striping to three of the six tennis courts at nearby Solstice Park when it’s resurfaced (which was supposed to have happened by now but is on hold until next year because of weather, Parks told us). Parks says it scrapped Solstice striping and came up with the Lincoln Park plan because both tennis and pickleball players preferred separate facilities.
The people organizing this “movement” are just SNL-sketch level NIMBY. Portlandia has nothing on this. This is what NIMBYism is, guys: to claim to support X, just not near where you live/recreate. In this case, the organizers keep claiming they’re not against pickleball; their latest flyer even claims they *love* it! See, they’re hip and like fun… Just not here. Somewhere else. Where? Not their problem. Even when there’s a very suitable, unused space for it, money on the table to find it, and a very clear community demand for courts in this quadrant of West Seattle. There are literally no options west of 35th, south of Alki, north of 148th in Burien. That’s a lot of area without courts, therefore a lot of people traveling, likely driving, for pickleball. People want this and the location makes sense. 
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