|   Houston's Memorial park...from the Houston Chronicle | HellMuttCracker
Dec 1, 2003 9:08 PM | | Oct. 3, 2003, 10:10PM
We're being deported from Memorial Park
By DAVE DYER
I am being deported from Memorial Park because I'm a tennis player. I'm not in bad company; the soccer, softball and croquet players will also be scheduled for deportation if the proposed Master Plan for Memorial Park is accepted by Houston City Council.
The plan says we can all stay until a new place is found for us, but we are officially unwelcome on a long-term basis. They don't know where they are going to send us yet, but they tell us that everyone, including us, will be happier when we are gone from the park.
Well, maybe...
Golf, running and polo are officially acceptable, according to the plan. Polo? Yes, polo. There is a large polo field, complete with ponies, in the northwest corner of the park, and it is accessible from the road to the Bayou Club, a 57-acre private club on the edge of the park. It morphs into an Equestrian Center in the long-range plan, after the other sports facilities are gone.
How did we get into this position where polo is OK in our best public park, but tennis, soccer, softball and croquet are not? Do our elected officials expect to gain re-election on the strength of the polo vote?
The park is congested, especially near the tennis center. Parking is the main problem because most of the estimated 10,000 daily runners want to park near the Tennis Center so they can change clothes and take a shower.
Who can blame them? Changing clothes in your car is potentially difficult, unsafe and indecent. And who wouldn't want a shower after a long run in the muck that passes for air in Houston?
But why is the best solution to remove the tennis courts and leave the tennis center and its showers for the runners? Wouldn't it make more sense to build a new facility along the trails for the runners?
When Memorial Park was laid out, no one anticipated the sport of running. The current trail was not officially installed until 1978 and lights were installed in 1984. Nothing else has been done for this expanding sport.
The real-life, near-term problem with selecting certain sports for deportation is that maintenance funding will gradually disappear for those activities. The people who have to set priorities and manage budgets will naturally favor those activities, like golf and polo, that will be in the park long term. As their facilities deteriorate, the deportees may be more eager to move to the new home selected for them by the city.
This is not the first attempt to remove the tennis courts in their 50-some years in the park. In 2001, the Houston Golf Association wanted to bring the Shell Houston Open to Memorial Park but needed to extend the driving range for the pros. The new range would have taken out half the tennis courts. There was a public outcry and a lengthy petition drive.
Eventually, a much better home was found for the Shell Houston Open. But they would still like a longer driving range and I must wonder if that is not a sub-plot in the master plan. Page 59 of the plan makes it clear that the driving range will be extended once the tennis courts are removed.
The plan calls tennis exclusionary because it requires fees for use, but fails to make the same judgment about golf, even though the fees are much higher. It states proudly that about 60,000 rounds of golf are played annually, but neglects to say that between 30,000 and 40,000 tennis players use the courts each year, while taking up much less of the park.
The stated justification for the deportation is to return the park to a greener, more natural, environmentally sustainable setting. Of course, preserving the natural setting is important, but it can't be the only consideration. If it were, the golf course would be the first thing to go. It is 600 manicured acres fed by hundreds of pounds of fertilizers, weed killers and pesticides.
I find it interesting that the master plan calls for making the park more environmentally friendly, but does not even consider the environmental impact of the golf course. How much fertilizer, pesticide and weed killer is actually used? Does any of it run off into the bayou? Does any of it get into the ground water? What is the impact on the wildlife in the park?
These questions are not even addressed in the plan. I am told that the golf course uses natural or organic products, but even these can have an environmental impact; crude oil is as natural as it gets. My point is: An objective, impartial master plan would at least address these issues.
I am a bit concerned about the overall value judgment that whatever is natural must take precedence over what is man-made. The park already has a large, completely natural area, the Arboretum. Is it the intention to make the rest of the park like the Arboretum?
There seems to be a very Victorian image of people having picnics out in nature. But in Houston, a picnic outside in the park can mean watching your sandwich melt while you are pestered by mosquitoes and fire ants. If the public really wanted the park to be more like the Arboretum, there would be traffic jams now in the Arboretum rather than at the running trail.
Preserving the natural setting is essential. But this needs to be balanced against the interests of the park users and the historic use of the park as a place for recreation.
It is all about fairness and balance. Should the plan designate groups of users who are officially unwelcome to pursue their recreational activity in the park, even though they have done so for generations?
A couple of weeks ago, I played tennis at Memorial Park with a fellow I met at the back board. He was visiting from San Francisco and had never been to Memorial Park before. He went on and on about what a great place it was, how there was so much going on, such a bucolic setting for the courts, etc. He said, "We don't have anything like this in San Francisco."
I told him, "Yeah, it's great, but they are trying to put a stop to it." And you thought California had a corner on strange politics. |
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