A planned meeting with Tim Meyer of Meyer Architect Group didn’t happen when Meyer failed to show on June 20, 2013 for a special meeting scheduled with the Tofte Town Board.
Meyer told the board he didn’t receive the e-mail about the meeting and therefore didn’t know about it. The special meeting was called in the hopes that a resolution could be found to fix the tennis court built last fall at Birch Grove Community Center.
The tennis court was built to the architect’s specifications, but according to tennis players, it was built incorrectly and needs to be fixed before it is playable. The court peaks in the middle.
“Tim recently sent a proposal to fix the elevation on one side of the court,” said Tofte Supervisor Paul James. “But according to Rod Wannebo of the Cook County Tennis Association, that would create an optical illusion where one side of the court would appear higher than the other side and would therefore give that player on that side an advantage,” said James.
According to the American Sports Builders Association Tennis Courts—A Construction and Maintenance Manual: “Tennis courts should never slope from the net line toward the baseline or from the baseline toward the net, since this has the effect of raising or lowering the net. Neither should they be sloped from the centerline to the sides since this creates a ridge in the court. The entire court must be sloped in one plane.”
After the court was completed and players complained, Meyer said the slope was more of an issue for competitive players, but according to Mike Goldhammer, executive director, United States Tennis Association Northern who is responsible for USTA tennis in Wisconsin, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota, “There is no such thing as competitive versus recreational court designs that I know of. I would like to see some documentation that speaks to these terms.”
Money to design and build the court came from the 1 percent tourism recreation tax. Tofte was awarded $924,000 to upgrade the Birch Grove Community Center grounds, the playground, hockey rink, and tennis court, among other projects. Meyer Architect Group was paid $81,507.65 to provide architectural plans for those projects.
No official action has been decided by the town board, said James, “But it might come down to talking to our attorney and to our constituents and see what they would like to do. It looks like it might come down to litigation or arbitration, but we’ll just have to wait and see.”
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