THE SHORT VERSION:  Flick Park residents and allies have been trying -- with no luck -- to get the Glenview Park District to back down from their plan to add eight more outdoor pickleball courts to Flick Park, destroying the greenspace on the north of the park, creating an ongoing noise nuisance for park users and middle-class/working-class homeowners on 10 nearby streets, adding light pollution to the park (and the homes nearby), creating traffic and parking issues, and increasing flooding of the nearby backyards by switching grassland for hard-top.

In addition to signing the petition being sent to Joseph Sullivan, President of the Glenview Park District Board of Commissioners, please join us at the Flick Park Pickleball presentation meeting on November 16^th at 6:00 p.m. at Park Center to once again make our voices heard. And we will show up again the next night on November 17^th at 7:00 p.m. at the Park Center for the next Park District meeting. Please join if you can and make your voices heard!

(We understand that 6:00 on Wednesday is difficult for many people getting off work to make. One might wonder if that may be the point.)

The LONG VERSION:  Pickleball is a fast-growing sport with a devoted – many enthusiasts call themselves “fanatical” - following.

As recently documented on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (HBOMax) pickleball is voraciously taking over tennis courts, park spaces, basketball courts, volleyball courts, play lots, parking lots, driveways, backyards, etc. To accomplish this, Pickleballers are well organized and have a playbook for spreading their message and pressuring park districts, including pamphlets such as “Presenting Pickleball to Public Parks and Recreation (and other entities) and How to Overcome Objections” by Steve Manolis. As the Real Sports segment put it: “they’re coming” for your space.

Here in Glenview, a survey sent exclusively to pickleball players (not all of whom were living in Glenview) resulted in a whopping FIVE players stating that they want pickleball expanded in Flick Park.

Seemingly as a result, in July the Park District settled on a plan to pave over most of the green space on the north end of the park (between the north parking lot and the baseball field), including cutting down trees to give the pickleball enthusiasts EIGHT more dedicated pickleball courts in addition to the six they already have here. It appears that the Park District wants this not BECAUSE of the five requests in their survey, but DESPITE the fact they only received five such requests (and have heard from many more local residents that they DO NOT WANT THIS). According to their own website, the Park District is following in the footsteps of the City of Chicago and other Chicago suburbs in trying to offer more courts for both village residents and those who may come here from elsewhere.

The Flick Park north-end greenspace currently holds two football fields used by young flag football players, hosts adult soccer, and is where many families quietly run, walk, picnic, toss Frisbees, send up model rockets and mini-drones, exercise their dogs, and enjoy a quiet day out. And wildlife from possums to skunks to geese to goshawks make regular use of the space. The grassy land also provides valuable drainage to the neighborhood (though it could use more).

In other words, to the eyes of the people who currently enjoy Flick, including the homeowners within yards of the park, green and beautiful north Flick Park is a properly functioning park, fully enjoyed by the community. It won’t be “improved” by paving over paradise to put up eight pickleball courts. But we understand that building new courts for a popular sport looks better on a resume than listening to the concerns of the residents who want to “leave well-enough alone.”

As anyone who has stood within two hundred yards of a pickleball court can attest, it is VERY LOUD; according to an article on Findlaw about this issue: “The problem is noise. Although pickleball resembles tennis, there are notable differences that create elevated decibel levels when pickleballers gather. 1. Unlike the soft, nap-covered balls used in tennis, the pickleball is hard plastic and much noisier than a tennis ball when struck. 2. Pickleball courts are much smaller than tennis courts – about one-fourth the size. This means that at least four times more pickleballers can occupy the space of a former tennis court. 3. Instead of stringed rackets of the type used in tennis, a pickleball paddle is a larger variation of ones used in Ping-Pong. 4. The exchanges in pickleball are much faster than those in tennis and more closely resemble those in Ping-Pong, leaving far fewer silent gaps between ball strikes than in tennis.” Additionally, unlike quiet tennis players, pickleballers are known for their rowdy, enthusiastic cheers and groans throughout the game. And the courts remain filled from sun-up until the lights go out. As Findlaw states, “picketball courts can create a lot of racket. It’s much harder on the human ear than badminton. And neighbors aren’t happy about it.”

A google search reveals the average pickleball court creates about 70 decibels of high-pitched noise, 100 feet from the court (AKA FREEWAY LEVEL NOISE), characterized by a mix of high, piercing pops and the exuberant cries of the players. In most parts of the country this is a clear violation of local noise ordinances. One lawsuit, by the mayor of Mission Hills Kansas against his local country club, is seeking to force pickleball courts to be placed no closer than 600 feet from any residence. We, whose homes are along the park, can attest that even at 600 feet you can hear the pop-pop-pop of the current court.

The Park District’s outdoor courts will allow up to THIRTY-TWO players to play at once -- in addition to the TWENTY-FOUR players who can play on the six extant pickleball courts – which are already driving nearby homeowners on Pam Anne, Rugen and Estate to distraction.

This means potentially FIFTY-SIX PICKLEBALL PLAYERS on the courts at one time, creating a high-pitched cacophony that, if all the nuisance noise lawsuits against purveyors of pickleball across the country are any indication, will destroy the peace of the park and its neighbors, pitting sleepless and angry residents against hopped up players and driving down local home values.

While pickleball gained great popularity during the early days of the pandemic, it could in a few years -- like other once-hot sports fitness crazes -- go the way of Tae Bo, roller blading, the Bow Flex, Soul Cycling, Peloton and Jazzercise.

If this goes through, we, the residents of Glenview and the Flick Park neighborhood, will have lost a beautiful, green, quiet park, the quiet enjoyment of our homes, many tens of thousands of dollars in home value each (cumulatively could be in the millions), and all this will have cost the Park District between six hundred thousand and about a million dollars in funding.

As for the six-hundred foot limit the Mayor of Mission Hills is seeking – based on where the park district is planning to put the courts, the homes on Pam Anne, Longmeadow, Springdale, Lindenwood and Crestwood will all be under the aural assault from the pickleball courts from sun-up until the lights go out at ten -- and with fifty-six players, the sound will likely be heard as far East as Highland and as far West as Pfingsten.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Flick Park is in the working-class/middle-class district of otherwise wealthy Glenview. A few of us have spoken to attorneys seeking help in our fight, and it looks like it would take $50K to $150K to fight this in court (with no guarantee of a win). It’s an old story: municipalities don’t generally place potential negatives in the wealthy parts of town, where the well-heeled, well-connected residents can afford to fight back. Our resources are limited and they know it. But we must try.

The time to stop this nuisance is now, before our tax dollars are spent and neighbor is pitted against neighbor.

About forty Flick Park neighbors showed up at a Park District meeting on September 14^th where the district presented their pickleball plan. The District was seeking comments as part of their application process, explaining in part their plan to apply for an Open Space Lands Acquisition and Development Grant (OSLAD) from the state to cover half the costs of pickleball and other improvements. They never told us the plan was approved back in July and would be going forward WHATEVER we said or what our concerns are. The comment seeking meeting was to tick a box on the application that privileges applications developed with grassroots community input.

After listening and asking lots of questions, we residents at the meeting took a show-of-hands vote on whether we wanted this plan. The vote was THIRTY-SEVEN AGAINST, ONE FOR and two abstaining (the one for and two abstaining were pickleball players, one of whom assured the rest of us that – although we hate the noise from the current courts – the sound isn’t that bad and we’ll come to appreciate it). The district saw and heard how the community felt, and asked us to simply write down our concerns and suggestions. They expressed openness to making small-but-important improvements, such as fixing the stairs on the sled riding hill, but ONLY as part of the application for pickleball money for Flick. Other locations for pickleball were suggested by the residents, such as Community Park West, five minutes from Flick, with all the same infrastructure (parking, bathrooms, etc.), far away from any residences, and already subject to freeway noise. Tim Beckmann from the Park District explained the grant could only be used for pickleball at Flick. Of course, that would only be true if they chose to submit an application naming Flick. They could have chosen to name any park, including one where no residents would be impacted.

After the meeting, some of us looked into the land grant application, and realized it was unlikely to succeed if the state of Illinois found out the Park District was going to use the money for paving over greenspace. We notified the district that we believed the state would not look on this with favor, and the district informed us that they had changed the grant application to remove pickleball from it, giving the impression that the issue of putting pickleball into Flick had been resolved in our favor, at least temporarily -- but it turns out they still applied for the money, with the plan that the grant money would be used for the other improvements, but the pickleball money will now come from local funds (presumably saved-up Park District funds or taxes). Devious.

In other words, they shifted around which entity would pay for what so they could still raise 600K from the state, while NOT backing down on bringing pickleball to Flick.

Five of us went to a Park Board meeting on October 27^th and spoke up again, but got no traction.

As stated above, many more of us plan to show up to the coming Flick Park Pickleball presentation meeting on November 16^th at 6:00 p.m. at Park Center to once again make our voices heard. And we will show up again the next night on November 17^th at 7:00 p.m. at the Park Center for the next Park District meeting. Please join if you can and make your voices heard!

(And again, we understand that 6:00 on Wednesday is difficult for many people getting off work to make. One might wonder if that may be the point.)

The law says that homeowners and renters have a right to the quiet enjoyment of their homes. Infringing on that right by imposing pickleball noise on us will cause REAL HARM to the people living here (nuisance noise, light pollution, potential flooding, and a severe decrease in home values). Pickleballers are not entitled to courts wherever they want. Not giving in to THEIR demands causes no harm for they will be no worse off than they are now. The inevitable harm to the current homeowners and residents should far outweigh the desires of pickleball enthusiasts. Pickleball is already at Flick and many other suburban parks, and can be provided at CPW or other Glenview locations if the Park District chooses. Given the needs and desires of the residents, this should be a no brainer.

The inevitable harm to the current homeowners and residents should far outweigh the demands of pickleball enthusiasts. In choosing to privilege pickleball players over homeowners they are putting all of us – homeowners, players and the Park District and Village on a path to strife. A google search for “pickleball lawsuit” reveals where this is likely to lead.

In light of all of the above, we are petitioning The Glenview Park District Board of Commissioners and Joseph Sullivan, President of the Glenview Park District Board of Commissioners , with the following demands:

1.     That no new outside pickleball courts be built in Flick Park.

2.     That the current pickleball courts in Flick Park be converted back to tennis courts or be turned into INDOOR courts.

In addition, we will make the following suggestion:

The Park District should build all the pickleball courts they want in Community Park West or another location where there are no nearby residents.