City Won’t Spend Promised $1M On Newton Hill Without Tennis Club Deal in Place

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Thursday, June 25, 2015

Patrick Sargent, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

On Tuesday, City Manager Ed Augustus released a statement alerting the public that deal between the city and the Worcester Tennis Club for occupation of the Newton Hill tennis courts fell through.

On April 14, members of the WTC met at Holy Cross to vote on whether to merge with the Holden Towers Tennis Club or agree to a deal with the City of Worcester and move the club to newly constructed Newton Hill tennis courts in 2016.

The club voted for the deal with the City.

As GoLocalWorcester reported in April, the city was promised to pay $1 million towards the cost of construction of the new tennis courts and club area and the WTC would roughly spend $500,000.

Now that the deal has fallen through, what will the city do with the $1 million?

"During the few months of discussions between the City and the WTC, the Manager made it clear that, because of so many park and recreational needs throughout the city, our $1 million dollar capital investment in a new tennis complex at Newton Square was contingent upon receipt of half a million dollars from the WTC," said Distrcit 5 City Councilor Gary Rosen.

“We did have a meeting with him (Augustus) in May to express our concerns to him. (City Manager)Augustus was digging in his heels,” Moira Coakley founder Preserve Our Woods: Save Newton Hill. “He flat out looked at us and said, ‘If this deal does not go through with the Worcester Tennis Club, we will invest no money into repairing the courts.’”

Preserve Our Woods: Save Newton Hill, is an opposition group of over 280 members that was formed in response to the proposed partnership to WTC. According to Coakley, the group sent over 160 emails to city officials on Monday night demanding that a statement be released to the public regarding the deal falling through. A released statement from the group read, "Our group feels strongly that if the city could consider investing $1.1 million dollars to largely benefit a private club, they should most certainly be open to investing substantially less money to maintain their ongoing commitment to the public users and taxpayers of the city."

Newton Hill to Remain the Same for Now

"Because City Manager Augustus is a strong supporter of private-public partnerships, he and his administrative team entered into discussions with the Worcester Tennis Club," Rosen told GoLocal. "The goal was to see if the present four, but kind of shabby, hard surface courts at Newton Square could be expanded into a highly-desirable six-court tennis complex with several new amenities."

The original deal called for the City to fund the building of six new tennis courts, and adding seating, lighting and a new clubhouse for the WTC members. The City will also assume the cost of utilities and will be responsible for collecting public tennis court permitting fees.

“‘I said ‘Is there any way we can take a fraction of that $1 million and invest it into Newton Hill?’ But from what I understand, they may not have even appropriated the money yet for the Worcester Tennis Club deal,” Coakley added.

Coakley said, “When this whole thing began, that was the conversations we were having. There was no public assessment of needs and wants, like they should’ve done. They would’ve found out that all the public really wants is for them to go in and fix some cracks, maybe put in some new nets, and resurface the worst portions of the courts. That’s pretty much it. Everyone kind of likes the Newton Hill the way it is.”

“The courts are filled now. People are waiting to use those courts," said Steve Quist, resident of Worcester and one of the more vocal opponents of the WTC deal. . "They (the city) would know that if they took the time to look into it and I don’t think they have.  In the future, if Worcester Tennis Club takes it over, the public would have to go through the city just to get a permit to use our public courts.

City Stonewalls Newton Hill Group

Earlier this month, Augustus met with members of the WTC group and Councilor Rosen to discuss. It was at that meeting that it was revealed no deal would take place. 

"The City Manager and I were adamant that the public needed to retain its present four hard surface courts. The two new courts could be red clay courts - the type of surface used by the WTC since 1907," said Rosen. "However, understandably, the WTC decided that it could not survive and grow its membership with the availability of only two red clay courts. So last Friday, June 19, discussions between the two parties ended amiably. But nothing ventured, nothing gained."

“From that point on, the deal was dead. They had no further talks. Nothing moved forward from that point on. And that was an issue for us,” said Coakley. “we knew they were having this meeting, and then we didn’t hear anything. It just went completely silent. Which we thought was very unusual since we had great communication up to that point. There was a delay by city officials in the announcement of this turn of events in the hopes that public outcry from our group, which was significant, would die down and the city could 'save face.'"

“When the news came down Tuesday, we were all really, really pleased, “ Coakley added.

Similar demands for involvement and discussion from Worcester locals have stemmed from the sale of the former Worcester courthouse, the near-handing over of 15 acres of land next to Chandler Magnet school to Worcester State University for a parking lot, the traffic concerns of residents near the Norrback Avenue school, and the call for a Citizen Review Board of the Worcester Police Department.

“We’ve had a lot of discussions about just repairing the process to engage the public. It’s been an issue here, an issue at Chandler (Magnet) and now it may become an issue at Green Hill as well. Nobody should have to fight this hard to be involved,” said Coakley.

“We can’t say we’re down now. Our next step is that they need to repair the courts that we already have. I think that’s the next step that everyone would like to see happen,” Coakley said. “And that’s going to be a battle too. I don’t think people understand how much of a battle that is going to be."

Rosen said, "While discussions proceeded, I appreciated the input and concern of the recently-formed Save Newton Hill group. Sure, they were opponents of this project. But, more important, they are active proponents of this special area of  beautiful District 5 and our city. I now look forward to working with this and many other groups and individuals to see if funds can be raised privately to resurface the four courts at Newton Square so that tennis enthusiasts of all ages have a quality hard surface on which to learn, play and enjoy the game."

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