Meetings Ahead
Some meetings are in person, some online, and some are both. Go to provincetown-ma.gov and click on the meeting you want to watch to see if a remote option is available.
Thursday, Jan. 20
- Animal Welfare Committee, noon, Veterans Memorial Community Center
- Board of Health, 4 p.m., Town Hall
Monday, Jan. 24
- Community Housing Council, 4 p.m., virtual
- Select Board, 6 p.m., Town Hall
Tuesday, Jan. 25
- Visitors Services Board, 9 a.m., Town Hall
- Economic Development Committee, 1 p.m., virtual
- OPEB Trustees, 1 p.m., Town Hall
- Licensing Board, 5:15 p.m.
Thursday, Jan. 27
- Planning Board, 6 p.m., Town Hall
Conversation Starters
Pickleball Pondered for East End
The recreation commission is considering converting a basketball court to make way for pickleball at the East End Mildred Greensfelder Playground on the corner of Bradford and Howland streets.
The pickleball tsunami hit Provincetown last summer like a ton of very loud bricks. When the former basketball court at the West End Chelsea Earnest Memorial Playground on Nickerson Street was striped with pickleball lines in 2021, players hit plastic balls from dawn till dusk. Neighbors went bananas complaining about the noise, prompting recreation commission members to think of additional pickleball locales.
The commissioners are asking for $100,000 in community preservation funds to renovate and restripe the old tennis courts at Motta Field on Winslow Street to redirect some of the pickleball passion. But since that must be voted at town meeting in April, the construction would not begin until September, said Recreation Dept. Director Brandon Motta.
On Jan. 12, the commissioners asked Motta if they can spend the money before the town meeting vote.
His answer was no, there is not “$100,000 lying around.”
“Okay — that is going to be a problem,” said Commissioner Mike Miller. “The abutters are going to go a little nuts if there are 24 to 34 people standing on the West End court waiting to play for nine hours a day all next summer, from May through September.”
So, the commissioners agreed to write a letter to abutters in the East End to see if the rear basketball court on Howland Street next to the WOMR radio station might be a palatable pickleball option. Motta said making that rear basketball court pickleball-ready would cost only a few hundred dollars and could be done without a town meeting appropriation.
“Obviously, we have a major demand for pickleball court space here in town,” Motta said. —K.C. Myers
