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# Love lost: Tennis court renovation falls flat
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/love-lost-tennis-court-renovation-falls-flat-editor/
- Published: 2006-10-17T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T21:41:06.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Joseph Hanania Santa Monica*

Perhaps the city of Santa Monica should hire the former head of FEMA, Michael (“heck of a job”) Brown to oversee reconstruction of the tennis courts at Reed Park. Certainly, he could not do a worse job than he has to date.

Specifically, the courts were closed to the public on June 1 for what was supposed to be a one-month job putting in new lights for evening tennis.

Meanwhile, court fees range from $5 an hour for singles play to $10 an hour for doubles play, and with a few exceptions, the courts rent out from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thus, the six courts could easily bring in $250 to $300 a day — or $2,000 a week with only moderate use.

But summer is not a time for moderate use. Rather (who knew?), summer is the height of tennis season. And so it was that the city completely shut down the courts during — drum roll, please — summer.

The result: a project, which in private hands might have taken one week to complete, and which, in the city’s capable hands, was supposed to take four weeks, instead took not one, not two, but three months — June, July and August. Instead of losing $8,000 for just one month (once more, I am keeping the numbers conservative), it lost $8,000 for three months, or an extra $16,000 out the window. Gone. What else could that $16,000 have purchased?

When the courts finally reopened in September after this very expensive remodeling — and, in fairness, the lights are, indeed, better — perhaps all this bumbling would have been forgotten. That is, had the walkways between the courts not been removed. For through to this day, only rubble remains, as if the walkways had been used for bombing practice.

Similarly missing are the bushes and plants which shielded the tennis courts from heavily trafficked Lincoln Boulevard, and the greenery which once, however imperfectly, adorned the now “bombed-out” walkways. Instead of being set in a park, then, the “improved” courts feel more like a Third World recreation area set against the roar of traffic.

So let’s either fix this thing and get it right, or let’s bring Mike Brown to Santa Monica. Even his watch would be an improvement.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 17, 2006.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/101706.pdf?ref=smdp.com)