Your coverage of the Whidbey Island Tennis Associations recent meeting with the Oak Harbor School District did not begin to convey the confusion and disappointment WITA felt in seeing this proposal die on the vine. In spite of having been a partner in this project for the last five years, the school district would not so much as put the proposed lease to a vote so the WITA could know where it stood.

The reasons given by the school board for rejecting the proposal were weak and insubstantial. WITA has made many presentations through the years to OHSD providing building plans, cost estimates as we have them and as clear a vision of the proposal as we could describe. The pink elephant designation is an insult in all honesty. WITA has spent time and money procuring the design input from the University of Washington and the University of Oregon to guarantee the structure would not be an eyesore and would meet advanced green standards for construction and energy savings.

Dr. Henninger has spent thousands of hours consulting with designers, planners and other tennis centers similar to our proposal. It is never likely to be a pink elephant and represents a significant improvement over the dilapidated and neglected courts that have occupied the requested space for 25 years.

The financial argument does not wash either. Name one other non-profit proposal that had 100 percent of its money up front before it received support from the community? The Rotary lagoon, Ft. Nugent playground, Boys and Girls Club and the upcoming Memorial Stadium would never had been built without the support of the community, and they had no such front money. We have over 50 percent of our estimated required funding already in the bank and the school district has the audacity to disparage our fiscal and personal commitment to this proposal! I venture to add that the OHSD never has its money up front for capital proposals either; they must depend on taxpayer levees to fund, essentially borrow money for any of their projects. Their lack of faith is deplorable.

The argument OHSD makes about their ability to foster such an arrangement flies in the face of communities all over the Northwest that seek to develop community school partnerships to deliver services that may not be available otherwise. The current arrangement for the chamber of commerce, city parks, child care services and other collaborative efforts using OHSD assets are alive and well in the community without undue circumspection from the state auditor.

WITA was not and is not asking for a free ride. Our intent from the beginning was to build the entire facility at no cost to taxpayers at any level. We proposed to manage the facility since North Whidbey Parks and Recreation District has no interest in non-aquatic recreation and the city of Oak Harbor is too busy with its marina agenda to devote city time to work with WITA.

Everyone likes to suggest, all we need to do is purchase our own land. We have explained, time and time again, that our non-profit status requires that we not have complete control of all of the aspects of this project in order to retain our status. We do not want to build a for-profit facility to put money in the hands of investors and further the notion of tennis as a sport of the elite. Our goal has always been to provide a facility that would become the hub of the growth for the sport of tennis in our community, as it has been in the Northwest and throughout the country. The tennis “elite” of the last several decades have been children of immigrants and inner city kids that spent hours on the courts with dads and moms who wanted them to have opportunities. The opportunities for those kids were provided by people of vision who had the foresight and resources to be able to develop those talents, and to know that if you build it, they will come; to tennis, to soccer, baseball, you name it.

Even if you never become a world-class competitor the number of children in our society who are obese or without any physical activities is appalling. We need to desperately increase our investment in resources for our children and not in the form of more juvenile detention facilities. Children today may be the first generation in a century to not outlive their parents’ life expectancy, mostly due to a lack of physical activity and obesity.

WITA has not abandoned the vision of providing a resource for participating in a lifetime sport that young and old can participate and compete in for the betterment of their health and their quality of life. We still share this vision and this determination to see it become a reality. We will work with whosoever will sit at a table with us and negotiate as honest partners for a project that would be a legacy and perhaps even an economic resource to the community. We are open to suggestions and feedback from other potential partners and invite anyone with interest to contact myself or WITA President Dr. Fred Henninger to share their suggestions. Both of us are listed in the local telephone book and stand ready to see this proposal become a reality for the youth and families of our community, politics, panels and committees be damned!

Charles Niedzialkowski is vice president of the Whidbey Island Tennis Association.