Russell Gardens mayor aims to renovate tennis courts around Labor Day

Janelle Clausen
Russell Gardens Mayor Steven Kirschner lays out plans for the village over the news few months. (Photo by Janelle Clausen)
Russell Gardens Mayor Steven Kirschner lays out plans for the village over the news few months. (Photo by Janelle Clausen)

The Village of Russell Gardens hopes to complete fixes to its tennis courts around Labor Day, Mayor Steven Kirschner said a board meeting on Thursday night, to alleviate runoff issues and make the courts look more appealing.

Kirschner said they have a landscape architect who will draw up plans for the project, which in turn will go out to bid.

Among the major infrastructure changes for the three courts, once owned by the Russell Gardens Association, would be putting down new clay and installing a more sophisticated drainage system to reduce runoff.

“We are hopeful to work something out to be able to get access to our tennis courts and once that happens, the tennis courts will be redone,” Kirschner said. “I’m hoping to do that right after Labor Day.”

“We’ll have new clay and new fencing and we won’t have the concertina fence at the top, so it won’t look like it’s a workout yard for a local prison,” Kirschner added.

The tennis court first came to be in 1930 and, for most of its 88-year history, was managed by the local homeowners association. The village then purchased it in 2013 in hopes of improving the quality of the courts.

“One of the reasons I wanted to redo the tennis courts once the village took it over – obviously we couldn’t do anything before we bought it – is the clay has just been continually just packed down,” Kirschner said. “The association that owned it didn’t have the financial wherewithal to do anything other than just keep pounding it down, so the clay just got harder.”

In unrelated business, trustees approved 11 tax refunds due to the change in assessed values of homes totaling $1,300.03, signaled its intentions to conduct unscheduled inspections of a business allegedly operating without proper permits, and approved the subdivision of a residential property.

Kirschner also noted that the village will be finishing up the installation of a sprinkler system of the village’s portion of Cutter Mill Park, which would allow them to plant new flowers, help the grass and fight weeds.

The next meeting of the Board of Trustees will be Thursday, April 5.

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