For months, headlines in Anchorage were dominated by the question of whether state funds should be used to build a public indoor tennis facility.
Now the issue has resurfaced in the form of a scaled-back $600,000 request to the state Legislature for a fabric weather cover for the East Anchorage High School tennis courts.
The request comes less than a year after a series of heated Anchorage Assembly hearings and criticism from state and local elected officials over the way $4.4 million in state money had been appropriated for a multi-use facility with six tennis courts in Turnagain. The controversy came to a head this spring, when the Legislature pulled the funding for the project.
Two months later, the Alaska Club sold and closed its North location, the former Anchorage Racquet Club, and the number of indoor tennis courts in Anchorage dropped from nine to four. When the high school tennis season rolled around, rainy weather and a shortage of covered facilities led to fewer games in the season and, coaches say, a huge logistical headache.
On the heels of the failed effort to gain funding for an indoor facility, the frustrating high school season helped prompt the East High proposal, which the Anchorage Assembly substituted at the last minute on Nov. 26 for a $10.5 million request for a full-fledged indoor facility.
During the budget meeting, Mayor Dan Sullivan described the cover as an "open-air, translucent fabric" shielding matches from the rain. He cited the difficult 2014 high school season, calling it a "huge setback for a growing town like ours." East High boasts six tennis courts, the most of any of Anchorage's high schools.
Sullivan also implied during the budget meeting that the weather cover proposal had been vetted by the tennis community.
But the proposal, in fact, did not come from the group that formally advocated for the indoor facility and sent representatives to Juneau in 2013 to lobby for the funding. The former president of the Alaska Tennis Association, Allen Clendaniel, said the group's board was never formally approached about the East High tennis proposal before the Assembly approved adding it to the list of legislative requests.
Clendaniel said the idea did come up in informal conversations with the mayor months ago. But he said it came as a surprise when the Assembly took out the $10.5 million request for an public indoor facility and substituted the scaled-down weather cover request.
He emphasized the tennis association's support for the East High proposal, despite the dramatic shift in scope.
"If we could get that, cover the East High courts, that would be really helpful," said Clendaniel, who recently became the association's secretary after taking a position as president of the U.S. Tennis Association's Pacific Northwest section.
But Clendaniel also acknowledged: "It's not ideal, not what we wanted."
That was news to Assembly member Elvi Gray-Jackson, who sponsored the weather cover proposal with Assembly member Dick Traini. Gray-Jackson said Friday she was under the impression from the mayor that the Alaska Tennis Association had been approached.
In an interview late last week, Sullivan, a tennis player and former head tennis coach at West High, clarified that the idea stemmed from conversations he had with high school coaches.
"The genesis of it was the will of the coaches to be able to complete a match without a rainout," Sullivan said.
Bill Cotton, Dimond High's tennis coach, said the problem was not just that the season was shortened from 14 meets to 10. Rainy weather also cut off individual matches. One match had to be played out over four different days, Cotton said.
While a weather cover would help to counter rainouts, Cotton also said the proposal should not be seen as a compromise. A year-round indoor facility, which would allow winter play, remains the long-term goal, said Cotton, who testified in favor of the Turnagain project at Assembly meetings last year.
"'Compromise' sounds like you're halfway there. I don't think this quite does that," Cotton said. "But as far as high school tennis, it would really help."
Sullivan said the design of the weather cover could leave open the possibility of it becoming an enclosed, permanent facility in the future.
For now, however, there is the state's fiscal reality to contend with. Both Cotton and Clendaniel said tennis advocates are beginning to accept that the odds of receiving millions of dollars in state money for a full-fledged indoor facility are slim in the near future, and a more simple request for a weather cover was far more realistic.
But even if the $600,000 grant ultimately comes through, it would only cover about half the total cost of the project. Sullivan said groups have been discussing corporate sponsorship as one way to raise the additional money.
The role of the Anchorage School District in the East High project remains an open question. Several months ago, the mayor met with Mike Abbott, chief operating officer at ASD. Abbott said the conversation was very conceptual, and little since has been fleshed out about operations or responsibilities.
Abbott also said he's not presently aware of any funding that would be available from the school district for the weather cover.