I concur with Ken..."The infrastructure is 40 years old and needs attention," said Kneuven. "I know we are thinking of going into significant debt. If you are going to spend money, should you spend it on existing facilities? This looks like a bad investment. It looks like creating something hoping someone would buy it."

Second, will the facility be available ONLY for indoor tennis, or can it be used for other non-sport activities such as receptions, community events, parties, or movies?

Correction, Karen, the $12,000 will take one of the only 2 Babe Ruth 90' fields that RA owns and convert it to use for Little Leaguers whose arms aren't yet strong enough to play on a 90' field. This program is only meant for 13 year olds to play on for one year. The last count was that only 48 kids can't make the throw from 3rd to 1st on a 90' field.

In contrast, Babe Ruth kids and Senior Babe Ruth kids play on the same 90' field for 5+ years.

There was another field this 13 year olds program could have gone to: South Lakes Drive Park. The chairman of the FCPA had committed to resod the infield and build a pitchers mound for this one year program at South Lakes Drive Park. Somehow that wasn't good enough for Reston Little League.

Now any hope of restoring a Reston based Babe Ruth program is that much more remote. Reston had its own Babe Ruth program as recently as 5 years ago. Reston Little League abandoned it and the boys have to travel to Herndon to play Babe Ruth. It's a shame the RA Board and RYB aren't interested in re-establishing a Reston Babe Ruth program.

I guess I just don't understand Reston. I've lived here for almost 10 years and for the life of me, in an age where many people are just scraping by, I can't understand why we're even considering this. Nothing that I've read so far has convinced me otherwise. There are so many more important ways to spend our funds.

BTW, I'm a tennis fan, too.

Considering that the current capital budget already has $1.7 million scheduled to be spent on renovating outdoor courts and the millions needed to refurbish the many lake intake structures, dams and outlet structures as our lakes approach their 40th anniversaries, its hard to find an extra $4 million in capital funds for an indoor facility for 1,200 tennis players out of a population of 58,000.

I have to agree with Tom and John. Why are we even considering this amount of spending for such a specific project that the majority of Restion won't use. How about spending on things that are needed and beneficial to all.

I would like to know how much RA has ALREADY spent on the idea of indoor tennis with NO CLEAR INDICATION from the majority of stake holders that it is supported. I know there have been site and architectural plans in multiple iterations. Now we are being asked IF we want to have a referendum that would cost another $75,000?

That's a lot of dues funds on top of the huge amount already spent. Thank you to the members of the RA board who are holding the line on this "amenity." I support RA donating the land for the indoor tennis facility to the tennis lobby and letting them finance it independently. If it is possible for an indoor facility to be self-supporting, let it happen. But for RA to take on the burden of such a huge new infrastructure expenditure for such a tiny percentage of Restonians is unfair representation of dues paying homeowners by RA which is supposed to serve our best interests. Homeowners should control RA's actions; not vice versa.

At the meeting I was quite upset as how Larry and Milton presented information from their trip to Columbia. From how I understand it on their website and from talking with my Columbia residents I know, they structure their fees quite different then RA. They are taxed based on their home value as a base assessment to upkeep the general open space areas. Just this fee is already higher then what most people in Reston pay (hard to say exactly what it costs since it is based on property value but someone in Columbia with a 300K valued house would pay over $700 a year). On top of that they offer memberships to the plethora of athletic facilities (indoor/outdoor tennis, golf, fitness gym, ice rink, skate park, batting cages) Columbia Association operates.

Overall I'm just trying to point out that they have a significantly higher cost to participate and also a different structure - those in Columbia who don't want to pay for indoor tennis or other costly facilities don't have to buy the additional membership on top of their CA taxes. I think visiting CA and viewing their facilities to get an idea of construction types is great but these differences make it hard to compare the use and participation of CA athletic facilities to the Reston Association. It is my expectation that a CEO and director of parks and recreation would do their homework better and present the facts clear manner. I fully support Ken's points and am glad he represents my interests as a Reston resident.

It would be interesting...to put an indoor tennis facility in South Reston!

We walk by the tennis courts at Northpointe every day or evening all year, and on all the beautiful days it's nice enough to take a walk, the tennis courts are empty. There are people enjoying the grassy "ball fields" at Brown's Chapel playing many different kinds of sports. Let's see Reston keep it's precious open space available for many uses by many cultures - by ALL its residents and dues-payers. Let's see a neutral RA staff member sit at the tennis courts and "ball" fields on random weekends, weekdays, and weeknights) and do a survey to show us the numbers and the wishes of Reston residents who pass by or use them, and then show us the results.