The Fairmont City Council tabled another project at its meeting this week. This one is for new pickleball courts which may or may not come to fruition.

For some background, a few months ago the council approved a capital improvement project to move the courts from their current location at Veterans Park to the Winnebago Avenue Sports Complex. However, input was received, suggesting that they go elsewhere. Two of the locations included different sides of the soccer complex and the other location was where the skate park currently is.

The Fairmont Park Board suggested they go at the soccer field, which is where some avid pickleball players had also suggested they go. The park board suggested eight courts and were told they would cost approximately $880,000. The board also suggested using some of the undesignated Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) money, of which several million is available as it’s been collecting since the ballot measure passed in 2016.

However, when the council was tasked with deciding whether or not the soccer field was a good location for the courts this week, a lot of other questions came up. Was it going to be too noisy for the residents? Does there need to be eight courts or can there be four? Can tennis courts be included? How did these courts get so expensive? Is this really what we want to spend LOST funds on?

It’s true, these are valid questions and they can all be answered. The issue is calling for another work session and stalling another project.

Attending nearly all of the council meetings and work sessions, I know the council wants to have a number of work sessions to talk about a number of projects and other items, including the budget.

Because each council member has their own life and schedule, and because the meetings need to be properly noticed, the work sessions are often pretty spread out.

So when is this pickleball project going to be discussed again? The park board only meets seasonally, from April to September or October. While it doesn’t make decisions, it is made up of members with a vested interest in the parks who want to see them improved and are tasked with making recommendations to the council.

What’s more is that actual pickleball players in the community have shown up over the last year or so at either park board meetings or city council meetings to share concerns over the state of the current pickleball courts. Most recently, as new locations have been discussed, they’ve also shown up to give input on where they think the courts should go. Their presence should count for something.

Councilor Kawecki said this week that more than the input from the park board and pickleball players need to be considered concerning the LOST funds. She pointed out that the city has received about 40 different comments concerning the LOST funds and that she herself has received over 200 different submissions on the matter.

But the thing is, even if the project costs $880,000 (hopefully this comes in at a lower cost), that’s still just a portion of the total amount that is sitting undesignated.

There would be other money for other projects and at least the community would see forward movement on something.

So again, the issue is stalling another project. The failed community center wasn’t the city’s fault, or the council’s fault or the Foundation’s fault. It was a combination of problems that ended with a project more than 10 years in the making axed. And it left a portion of the community devastated as they were waiting for something new and exciting to come to town.

The argument that not everyone will use the pickleball courts is also weak. Every community needs a variety of amenities available to fit the different interests of different age groups.

When I was younger, I remember frequenting the Fairmont Aquatic Park. Now that I’m older, and don’t yet have children, I haven’t gone in many years. However, I see how it’s important for children, teenagers and young families.

I also don’t play pickleball, but I understand a portion of our community does. I have an aunt and uncle who come to Fairmont to visit family and I can absolutely see them utilizing the courts while in town and I imagine there will be other scenarios like that.

No matter what projects the council picks to use the LOST funds on, there are always going to be people who ask ‘why that?’ The reality is you just can’t please everyone, no matter how many public input sessions are held.

We’ve seen other groups in town pick a project and go for it. The adventure playground at Gomsrud Park was made possible with a team of dedicated volunteers who fundraised and worked for it. Project 1590’s Kids Just Want to Have Fun committee has also had success in installing the indoor playground, mini golf course and bike share program.

While I acknowledge the funding sources are different, and the council is tasked with using sales tax money, there still seems to be an inability for the council to commit to a project and see it play through successfully.

It’s all well and good for the council to ask questions before forging ahead with an expensive project, especially one where residents’ tax dollars are concerned, but it would also be good for the community to see a project successfully completed in a timely manner. It would be nice for the people in the community to take pride in a new amenity, one that they can tell family and friends about, or point out to visitors and say, “we just added that.”

Projects take long enough as is when you consider going out for and awarding bids and then the construction time and any weather-related or other setbacks. Let’s not take so long discussing the pickleball courts that they eventually turn into another project in Fairmont that never was.