Over the last several years, we have used Kettering students to pull weeds in the tennis courts during our clean up days. This doesn’t seem sustainable to us. The courts are badly in need of resurfacing and having new poles and nets installed. But this begs the question… do we want three tennis courts in Mott Park?

Nena started a poll in the Facebook page in the spring of this year, and there was a lot of support for resurfacing all three, keeping one as a tennis court, turning one into a basketball court, and creating a “traffic garden” on the third. This would be a space painted like streets for kids to learn how to ride bikes safely.  

Nena and I would like to pursue this vision as it seems to be what most neighbors want. We know there are exceptions and concerns, especially around basketball. Our hope is that with having three different types of activities will allow the space to be used by all kinds of people. In recent years it has been used very sparsely by anyone at all, but it seems to us that doing something that will allow the space to be used for recreation is a worthwhile pursuit.

We have begun conversations with the Community Foundation and with Keep Genesee County Beautiful about helping us with the costs of these projects. It’s possible we will do some fundraising and get small grants from multiple organizations to piece together the costs of these projects. It will likely happen one at a time, starting with the traffic garden, and each one will cost in the range of $12-15k.

We welcome your input and your help in these projects! Please feel free to reach out to Nena or I anytime.

– Chad Schlosser