Re_ constituent email, thanks, plea 4_RedactedFrom:Winer, Tara
To:Rhodes, Alison
Subject:Re: constituent email, thanks, plea
Date:Sunday, April 21, 2024 11:36:58 AM
Call me whenever you can (-:
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From: Rhodes, Alison <RhodesA@bouldercolorado.gov>
Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2024 11:07:00 AM
To: Winer, Tara <winert@bouldercolorado.gov>
Subject: RE: constituent email, thanks, plea
I have talked to him twice – he is really great guy. I can call you from the Houston airport or
when I get to the workshop location and have a few minutes later this evening?
I am on a plane to Houston, back Tuesday afternoon. Somehow I got invited to be one of 30
people talking about establishing broad, measurable outcomes for public parks and
recreation. Its sponsored by the Trust for Public Land and National Recreation and Park
Association.
From: Winer, Tara <WinerT@bouldercolorado.gov>
Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2024 11:01 AM
To: Rhodes, Alison <RhodesA@bouldercolorado.gov>
Subject: Re: constituent email, thanks, plea
I just talked to him he is a great guy. If I could talk to you five min to explain that would be
great.
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From: Rhodes, Alison <RhodesA@bouldercolorado.gov>
Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2024 10:59:53 AM
To: Winer, Tara <winert@bouldercolorado.gov>
Subject: RE: constituent email, thanks, plea
Thank you so much for sharing, I really appreciate it!
From: Winer, Tara <WinerT@bouldercolorado.gov>
Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2024 7:50 PM
To: Rhodes, Alison <RhodesA@bouldercolorado.gov>
Subject: Fwd: constituent email, thanks, plea
Here it is below.
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From: >
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2024 12:57 PM
To: Winer, Tara <winert@bouldercolorado.gov>
Subject: Re: constituent email, thanks, plea
Hi, Tara
I greatly appreciate the response! I leave it to you whether to pass on the parks and rec.
with all due candor, the tennis community feels we’re getting largely lip service from
parks and rec, particularly given the imminent loss of courts. We’ve pleaded for years
and a solution is years away. This is despite the willingness of local investors to
participate. Just today, parks and rec wrote the Chitambers that the city it cannot accept
the donation of the winter bubble and any associated partnership because it must first
go through a competitive process around tennis partnership. I do get that there are
complexities but I also get that creativity goes a long way. So does leadership. Someone
will champion this desperate tennis community and be likewise cherished.
On Thu, Apr 18, 2024 at 11:55 AM Winer, Tara <winert@bouldercolorado.gov> wrote:
I am not skeptical. We have a limited Parks budget and limited land. I know Parks is
working on some solutions.
Did you go to a Parks Board meeting? Do you want me to send this email to the parks
dept so you can get an update on what they plan to do?
I feel your pain!
We are lacking in so many areas. And tennis is one of them.
Tara
From:
Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2024 10:12 AM
To: Brockett, Aaron <BrockettA@bouldercolorado.gov>;
commissioner.loachamin@bouldercounty.org; commissioner.levy@bouldercounty.org;
commissioner.stolzmann@bouldercounty.org; Adams, Taishya <adamst@bouldercolorado.gov>;
Benjamin, Matthew <benjaminm@bouldercolorado.gov>; Folkerts, Lauren
<folkertsl@bouldercolorado.gov>; Marquis, Tina <marquist@bouldercolorado.gov>; Schuchard,
Ryan <schuchardr@bouldercolorado.gov>; Speer, Nicole <speern@bouldercolorado.gov>;
Wallach, Mark <wallachm@bouldercolorado.gov>; Winer, Tara <winert@bouldercolorado.gov>
Subject: constituent email, thanks, plea
External Sender Notice This email was sent by an external sender.
Mayor Brockett, members of the City Council and County Commissioners,
First, thank you for your service. It's not an easy time to be in public office.
My name is . I'm a North Boulder resident, working as a journalist and
author who has written extensively over the last few years about public health issues,
mental health, adolescence, and aging. With a true sense of humility, but also
purpose, I want to underscore that I've developed some authority on the subject of
health and wellbeing. My 2022 series of stories on adolescent mental health, The Inner
Pandemic, was awarded a top national award for healthcare journalism. My recent
book on the Immune System, an Elegant Defense, partly set here in Boulder, was
named a top five book of the year by Bill Gates among the book's other accolades. My
next book, The Adolescent, focuses on deep science of life's transition to adulthood. I
write of these bonafides at the risk of sounding foolish, even arrogant, because I want
only to highlight that what I write here is based on deep research, the latest science,
and sincere grounding.
With that long windup, I say this: Boulder has a profound opportunity to support the
mental and physical wellbeing of many residents but also faces significant risk of
floundering? What am I referring to? Tennis.
I am a middle-aged tennis player, with two teen children who play too. I have become
close friends with players of all ages and demographics -- young professionals,
seniors, students on the CU club team, new players and skilled former college
players. At this moment in time, our vital community activity is deeply imperiled. As
you are well aware, the city and county face the imminent loss of 27 courts, including
all the public courts used for public access in the winter. This decimates the local
supply for a broad constituency of players -- families like ours with teens, wheelchair
players, the CU Women's team, seniors. For several years, the tennis community,
myself included, has implored parks and rec to respond to this imminent crisis. Their
plan now will provide courts several years down the road, with no clear winter option,
and no funding. But a solution is needed, now. Our physical and mental health is in
play.
All my research over the years has shown the profound benefit to exercise, play, and
community support for these activities. Fitness and exercise, for all their physical
benefits, curtail stress, strengthen the immune system, diminish anxiety, can help
curb depression. This is overridingly true for our youth, who face a mental health crisis
greatly aggravated by the lure of the digital device and the decrease in exercise. This
problem is amplified and exacerbated for those who lack access to public facilities;
an article I wrote last year -- The Income Gap is Becoming a Physical Divide -- showed
the sharp difference in fitness between wealthier youth whose families can afford
private clubs and facilities, and lower-income families, who cannot. This is what is
happening to tennis in Boulder, where the loss of publicly-accessible courts,
especially in winter, leaves access solely to those who belong to Meadows and
Boulder Country Club.
I can imagine your skepticism. Tennis? Really? Is it that important to the community?
And our health?
Yes, so hugely.
Tennis is one of the most popular lifelong sports. It has moved so beyond the confines
of the country-club set. The Daily Camera cites statistics that show 8700 people play
in the city. Colorado boasts 500,000 players. These are big numbers. But, figures
aside, Witness the packed courts around your community, the crammed winter courts
at erstwhile Rocky Mountain Tennis Center, the fact that Boulder High and other
schools vie already for court time with the public. A plan to build a publicly-
accessible, community tennis center in Gunbarrel has been stalled by neighborhood
opposition, despite being on land designated for a tennis facility with permission of
the county. On Saturday, we will watch as RMTC closes its courts at the Millenium.
The CU South courts will be plowed in the fall. Tennis, instead of being a source of
solace and wellbeing, will become a source of anxiety, court squabbles, commutes to
distant towns for ourselves and our children.
But there is reason for hope if we collectively can take action. There are many months
before next winter disenfranchises our community. There are constituents who can
help, and are very much trying to do so. I've had the privilege to get to know Kendall
and Donna Chitambar, who co-own Rocky Mountain Tennis Center, who proposed the
currently-thwarted tennis center at Gunbarrel, and who have given their lives to
support community tennis in Boulder. Kendall last year won the Arthur Ashe award for
community service in Colorado. From Boulder, he champions and instructs
wheelchair players who played at last year's US Open. The family runs a foundation for
public-school youth and those from lower-income families. These are extraordinary
people. They want to help. They are committed to us.
With the closure of RMTC, they also have a winter tennis bubble. One possible
solution would be to work with the Chitambars to erect their bubble over local city
courts for next winter so that there is at least a stopgap measure. Another, more
broadly, is to embrace their expertise and passion and move forward in Gunbarrel or
elsewhere.
But I write not with one solution in mind. My aim is to attempt to communicate, as we
tennis players have for several years, that we are desperate for your help. We are
decent, hardworking, taxpaying constituents who sense that a major source of
physical and mental health is disappearing. My 13-year-old daughter plays
recreational tennis through RMTC -- participating in clinics several times a week. She'd
like to play in high school, at Boulder or Fairview, and is not aiming to be a college
player or gain some other elite status. She, nor we, aren't interested in driving to some
distant facilities to keep up her activity. She's a good kid, exercising her body and
mind, meeting friends there from various parts of Boulder. The other day, she asked
me: "when the courts are done, will I still get to play tennis?"
Not from October to April. There will be no courts there. Spring through fall, sure, if we
can find open courts at the time she is available. Same for me, and my friends, and all
the seniors I see playing year round. But now without a place to do it. Boulder is an
outlier in so many positive ways. Please don't make us an outlier in a negative way by
leaving us without winter tennis, without sufficient court supply year round, and,
literally, one of the few division one communities that has no home for its women's
tennis. This is a question of equity, for all of us.
We need your help. We need it now. Please don't ignore us as elite players of an elite
game. That's not what this is, and who we are. But tennis absolutely risks returning to
the ranks of the elite without your assistance.
Humbly,