80 percent of Ventura's public tennis courts are closed because the slab has no rebar and isn't even real concrete. The City has known since 2021. They have committed exactly zero dollars to fix it. Five years of "we're working on it." We're done being patient.
In 2021, the City hired JL Skye Engineering to assess Camino Real Park. The engineer's finding: "The slab is not even concrete. It is just thick asphalt!" and "no rebar." The Ventura Tennis Club called it "a stain on the City's reputation" in January 2022. The City's response since then? Nothing. Not a single dollar committed.
No rebar. Not even real concrete -- just thick asphalt pretending to be a court surface. Cracks so deep weeds grow through them. 8 courts -- 80 percent of the city's entire public tennis infrastructure -- rotting in plain sight while the City shrugs.
Oxnard spent $1.4M and finished their renovation in 2024. Thousand Oaks resurfaced and added LED lighting in 2023. Santa Barbara invests continuously. Ventura? Ventura files grant applications that get denied and calls it a plan.
Every city within 30 miles of Ventura has funded, built, or actively maintained their public courts. Ventura is the only one sitting on its hands. This isn't bad luck. It's a choice.
| City | Distance | Investment | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oxnard | 10 miles | $1.4M court renovation | Completed Feb 2024 |
| Thousand Oaks | 20 miles | Multi-court resurfacing + LED lighting | Completed 2023 |
| Santa Barbara | 30 miles | Municipal Tennis Center upgrades | Ongoing investment |
| Ventura | -- | $8.4M project, $0 funded | No plan. No timeline. |
We're not asking for the moon. We're asking for the bare minimum that every neighboring city already provides. The fact that we have to campaign for this is the problem.
Stop hiding behind the $8.4M price tag like it's an excuse. Phase it. Start with the 8 tennis courts. $3-4M for Phase 1. Oxnard did their entire renovation for $1.4M. This is not complicated -- it just requires someone to actually do their job.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) grant was denied in 2023. The City's own assessment gives it less than a 45 percent chance next round. That's not a funding strategy -- that's a lottery ticket. General fund, USTA grants, state recreation programs -- there are real options. Pick one. Or pick all of them. Just stop pretending a coin-flip grant is a plan.
"We're working on it" is not a timeline. It's what you say when you're not working on it. Five years of nothing earns you zero credibility. Give residents a hard deadline, put it on the public record, and be held to it. That's how accountability works.
Polite emails get polite non-answers. Pressure gets results. Every action below makes it harder for the Council to keep ignoring this.
Every name on this list is a voter the Council has to face. 30 seconds of your time. Five years of their inaction. Do the math.
One click. All seven inboxes. Councilmember Bill McReynolds represents District 5 where Camino Real sits -- he should be hearing from you the most. Make them explain why Oxnard could do it and they can't.
Send the Email. All 7 Inboxes. →City Council meets the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays at 5:00 PM. You get 3 minutes of public comment. Use them. It's a lot harder to ignore a room full of angry residents than an inbox full of emails.
Next meeting: Tuesday, May 6, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Ventura City Hall, 501 Poli St, Ventura
Meeting Details →Send this to every tennis player, pickleball player, parent, and taxpayer you know in Ventura. The City is banking on you not caring enough to share. Prove them wrong.
Copy Link to Share →Serve Ventura is a grassroots campaign run by Ventura residents who are tired of being told to wait. We're parents, players, taxpayers, and voters who have watched 80 percent of our city's public tennis infrastructure rot while the City's entire "strategy" is a grant application that already got denied once and has less than a 45 percent chance of working next time.
We tried being polite. Five years of polite got us nothing. No funding. No timeline. No accountability. So now we're being loud, we're being specific, and we're naming names. Every Council member who votes to kick this can down the road again will hear from us -- at meetings, in their inboxes, and at the ballot box.
This is political because the City made it political. When you know for five years that a public facility is built on asphalt with no rebar, and you commit zero dollars to fix it, that's not a maintenance issue -- it's a policy failure. And policy failures have names attached to them.
Every claim on this site is sourced from the City's own documents: the 2021 JL Skye Condition Assessment, the Capital Improvement Program (CIP Project PM04-1019), and LWCF grant records. We don't need to exaggerate. The facts are damning enough on their own.