College Allows Boosters to Use Tennis Courts, Bars Public

About 60 financial supporters of Glendale Community College have been given exclusive use of the school’s publicly owned tennis courts when tennis classes are not in session.

In a city where hundreds of tennis enthusiasts often endure long waits to use 28 public courts, the 60 members of the Glendale College Foundation’s El Vaquero Racquet Club seldom have trouble finding room on the school’s six tennis courts, which are kept locked from the public.

For the past 18 months, the racquet club members, who pay the foundation annual fees of $200, have been issued keys to the courts, which they are allowed sole use of from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, as well as Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 5 to 10 p.m.

College tennis classes are conducted on weekdays and on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

In response to complaints, the foundation tennis club members will have to start sharing the courts with the public, beginning this summer.

“It smacks of elitism,” said one faculty member, who asked not to be identified. “If you don’t have the money, it precludes you from playing. Students can’t practice on the weekends and they want to know why.”

Others have questioned the propriety of restricting use of the tennis courts to foundation club members, especially because public funds were used to purchase and maintain the college property and pay for the courts, said Robert K. Holmes, a college Board of Trustees member.

“The complaint has been that it should be open to the public since public dollars paid for it,” Holmes said.

Glendale College President John A. Davitt, who defended the arrangement with the foundation, said, “We have no obligation to make the courts available to the public at all.”

The nonprofit college foundation was granted exclusive use of the courts in an informal agreement with the Glendale Community College District’s Board of Trustees after the school’s three original tennis courts were razed to make room for a three-story classroom building, Davitt said.

The foundation, guided by a 34-member board of directors, raises money for campus improvements and social events.

College officials said the campus had $1.16 million to spend for three new tennis courts, as well as a planned parking lot project. “But six courts was the ideal, educationally, because one instructor can watch six courts,” Davitt said.

So the foundation offered to raise $250,000 over five years to pay part of the cost of building six tennis courts, said Jim Cashion, foundation president.

In exchange, the college agreed to grant the foundation exclusive use of the courts when tennis classes aren’t using them, he said.

“My response to complaints is that had it not been for the foundation, those additional courts would not even exist, and the chances for people playing on the courts would be even less,” Cashion said. “Furthermore, members of the tennis club are not using the courts the entire time.”

College officials said the courts must be kept locked when classes are not in session to prevent vandalism. But Cashion said the public can use the courts on the weekends when foundation club members are not using them by climbing over a barrier.

But signs posted at the courts say: “This tennis court is reserved for the El Vaquero Racquet Club.” The word reserved is underlined.

The foundation’s exclusive-use arrangement will change beginning this summer, when a concession stand is built next to the tennis courts, Holmes said. The college will hire clerks to take reservations from the public and watch over the tennis courts, he said.

Holmes pushed for the arrangement to restrict the hours controlled by the foundation tennis club to weekends, from 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. In addition, the foundation would be allowed to control use of only two of the college’s six courts during those hours, Holmes said.

The public will be charged $10 an hour to play on the courts once the tennis concession stand is finished, college officials said. City-owned tennis courts, which require reservations, cost between $2 and $3.50 an hour, city officials said.

The city courts are “crowded and popular,” said Bob MacKay, community services supervisor. “There are a lot of tennis players in Glendale.”

The foundation paid $50,000 of its $250,000 pledge last June and has raised about $16,000 toward this year’s $50,000 payment, Executive Director Ann Ransford said.

The foundation raises money to pay its pledge through the tennis club memberships and by soliciting donors to pay for commemorative tiles that will decorate a grandstand at the tennis courts, she said.

The El Vaquero Racquet Club, which last fall had a waiting list of 60, now has one or two openings for six-month memberships, each costing $100, foundation officials said. By comparison, tennis memberships at the La Canada Flintridge Country Club cost $4,000, plus $80 a month.

Ransford said the tennis club arrangement was not intended to exclude the public from using the campus facilities.

“Our major concern was to keep them in good condition for the college,” Ransford said. “They are some of the nicest courts in Glendale.”