Yesterday, there was a HCSD Facilities Committee meeting, and Sheffer was there to advocate for the tennis courts. This morning, he submitted a report on what happened at the meeting in the form of a comment on his original essay about the tennis courts. Click here and scroll down to read what he had to say. It's the last comment and begins: "Dear fellow tennis nuts."
🤡 Some levity...
ReplyDeleteMaybe HCSD is going about this all wrong.
Don't pitch us on a $60m school budget at $35k a student with failing test scores, racial motivated bullying, and inflated administrative salaries...
🥁 No. Instead… give this the Don Draper / Madison Avenue treatment… we present to you:
👐 Welcome to The Cobalt Hawk Athletic & Social Equity (CHASE) Country Club for Gentleman, Ladies, and Everyone in Between; the only country club where no one plays, everyone pays, and someone slays.
For only $4,915 per household (with sliding scale fairness, of course, some are coerced to chip in $20,000 to keep it equitable #DEI), you get access to state-of-the-art and historic tennis courts featured in Ken Sheffer's writing, a pool open twice a week to the public during very specific and inconvenient hours, and an athletics track better and more expensive than what most Olympians train on in the Global South. No one uses it. The last recorded sub-5 minute mile was back when the Spampinatos were still running drills and the school was on the up and up.
$5,000 is nothing next to the $50,000 Racquet and Lawn club memberships back in the city or whatever Soho House is scheming in Rhinebeck. Here in Hudson, the C.H.A.S.E. Club has no initiation fee and no one's checking your backhand or your lineage.Tennis whites are optional, keffiyahs are encouraged. This is Serena country. [The only Federer anyone mentions is the guy who tried to open a market rate housing complex (no PILOTS) on State Street and got shut down by the Planning Board after he refused re-pave the entire sidewalk from Warren to the Basilica and imprint Braille signage at every juncture]
It's not just a district. It's a lifestyle. Membership is compulsory, like your Hudson property taxes.
~~~
💡 Jokes aside… many residents have been turned away from even training on the HCSD track in the middle of the day when it was not being used by anyone, and all students were in class in the locked buildings. Serious runners can simply walk onto a track in most countries while traveling for work, even very famous ones.
This is not a good utilization of resources and no way to thank tax payers. It is eminently reasonable for the many serious runners in town to want to train on the track in the winter so they do not have to dodge black cement trucks and white ice.
📞 Easy win for the many sincere and hard-working teachers at HCSD…. why not assign someone to reach out proactively to the community and make these facilities available to tax payers in a way that does not interfere with its primary use: student fitness. HCSD just sent out a mailer with very expensive kerning and layout, someone had a premium InDesign subscription and nailed the Baseline Grid Alignment. Why not advertise "Community Hours" in that mailer for the sports facilities?
p.s. can someone send this to the gents at Jamestown and The Major's Tailor... first mention of tennis whites in Gossips?
Dear All Interested Tennis Players, Spectators and Fans - My brief post after the Facilities Committee meeting was too short and did not give much for us to act on. I just wanted to get out the news that the courts were not being nuked. I'll put out a more precise note over the weekend and I will answer each email I've received about the courts and then start linking everyone up. This is exciting. Ken
ReplyDeleteThank you Ken!
ReplyDeleteYou do great work and the tennis courts are indeed very well utilized by residents of all ages and experience levels.
Our tennis chat group really enjoyed the Gossips re-post of your letter.
H
OK community, let's go! HudsonTennisCenter.com has been established. So has a site for the Hall of Fame. Content is being developed now. I have photos from all over the East Coast of new tennis courts going in or going out for new. I have spoken to the USTA and to the best tennis court builders on the East Coast. If you were, are or want to be a Hudson Tennis Center star please reply to the ad I am placing with Gossips today. Content and revolutionary activities to follow. No violence allowed. Only aces. Remember "Victory Belongs to the Most Tenacious." Ken Sheffer
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