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RE_ constituent email, thanks, plea 5_RedactedFrom:Rhodes, Alison To:Winer, Tara Subject:RE: constituent email, thanks, plea Date:Sunday, April 21, 2024 11:06:00 AM 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. Get Outlook for iOS 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. Get Outlook for iOS 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,