Fees hiked for tennis courts at certain parks

CITY HALL — Parks, Recreation and Community Services commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to increase rental fees for two city parks’ tennis courts to $4 for day use and $6 for evening and weekend use.

Fees were increased from $3 to $4 for day use and $4.50 to $6 for evening and weekend use.

The fees were also established on a per-hour and per-court use basis for 12 tennis courts at Fremont and Glorietta parks, where rental fees haven’t been increased for 13 years, said Brittney Bilotti, community services administrator.

“It’s been a long time since the fees have been increased,” Community Service Manager Joanne Venditto said at Wednesday’s commission meeting.

Glendale’s flat rental fee for tennis courts is still behind other cities, such as Burbank, which charge residents $10 per court and per hour and nonresidents $14.

But the rental fee increase was initially contentious because the Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department had proposed a per-person charge instead of per-court, Venditto said.

Tennis court users argued that many of them play in groups and that it was not fair for each person of a group to pay a fee to use the same court.

But department officials dropped the per-person fee and went with a per-court charge instead after they conducted outreach and public meetings and found that the tennis court users didn’t want a hike, Venditto said.

Since the department opted for the per-court fee, tennis court vendors have heard few complaints from users, said Ron Zambrano Jr., whose father operates the Fremont tennis courts.

Tennis court users mostly had an issue with per-person charge, he said.

The tennis court fee hike was long overdue, Zambrano said.

“We have been asking for the increase for at least three to four years,” he said.

His father incurred all the costs of operating the courts, which included paying insurance for the courts, lighting bills and maintenance.

“We were just making ends meet,” he said.

The rental fees only pay for operating the courts, Zambrano said.

Commissioner Dorothy Sharkey supported the fee increase.

“I am very comfortable with the end result that your department has come up with,” she told Venditto.

But Glendale resident Margaret Hammond opposed the fee hike because she said seniors, who live on a fixed income and use the courts for recreation, will have a hard time swallowing the costs.

“It adds up like everything else,” she said.

“In these hard economic times, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

 VERONICA ROCHA covers public safety and the courts. She may be reached at (818) 637-3232 or by e-mail at veronica.rocha@latimes.com.