NORTH FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Tennis courts at the site of a popular East Roswell Park may not have been conducive due to the topography of the land, but city leaders forged ahead despite the red flags, e-mails obtained by Channel 2 Action News reveal.
Emails are among hundreds of correspondences showing the behind-the-scenes discussions about a proposed large-scale tennis facility at Big Creek Park that sparked outrage from the community and forced the city to scrap the plans.
Channel 2's Mike Petchenik first reported on the proposal to build the largest clay court facility of its kind in the country off Old Alabama Road.
Car dealer Vernon Krause, through a foundation he set up, had proposed the idea to the city as a way to honor the legacy of his late daughter, Angela. The city had planned to lease Krause the land for the $50 million project.
After the story broke, neighbors circulated a petition that garnered more than 20,000 signatures demanding the city not clear-cut 65 acres of the popular park for the project.
[READ: You can download the entirety of the emails here]
“We were really upset that we weren’t notified,” said Stephanie Sears, homeowners association president for Barrington Farms, a 600-home subdivision adjacent to the park. “Our neighborhood has a really high concentration of cyclists, bikers and runners.”
After Petchenik heard from several East Roswell groups fighting the proposal, he filed an open records request for hundreds of emails to give him a better idea of how “Project Yellow Ball,” as it was dubbed, came to be.
According to the emails, Steve Stroud, executive director of Roswell Inc., the city’s economic development arm, organized the first meeting about the project last September.
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Over the next several months, Stroud, members of the Krause organization, U.S. Tennis Association and city council members met in private meetings to discuss the project.
Councilman Matt Tyser, newly elected last fall and appointed as liaison to the city’s Parks and Rec department, was the point person on council. He said he first started attending meetings in February 2018.
“We all thought it would be a really good thing for the city,” he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We really came to the public as soon as we could.”
[RELATED: Roswell's plans for massive tennis center called off]
A city spokeswoman Julie Brechbill told Petchenik no city officials got involved in the project until after the November election, in order to give new leadership an opportunity to weigh in on the proposal. She said that at no time prior to July 30, was a quorum present to take any official votes.
Brechbill told Petchenik the idea for Big Creek was proposed by the parks and recreation staff.
“The Master Plan for Big Creek was to include large-scale amenities such as an aquatic center, physical activity center, gymnastics building, arts center, several fields and tennis courts,” she said in an email
Thursday.
In April, tennis pro Danny Carlson, who was helping Krause with the project and had been tapped to run it, sent an email to Tyser about concerns raised by an engineering study of the park.
“The location of the land is absolutely fantastic however, the topography is not very conducive for a tennis center without extensive grading,” he wrote. “Originally, I was anticipating the city supporting the project enough to fund the infrastructure, grading and parking so Vernon's funds could start with a good amount of courts and an adequate clubhouse that could be phased into an amazing facility. I'm hoping the city will realize the awesome benefits enough to assist with some funding in order to get this off to a great start especially now that we know the property needs significant grading.”
Brechbill said the city made it clear it would not cover the cost and that Krause agreed to cover it so the project continued to move forward.
Tyser said no boring work took place at the park and that if crews had found granite, they wouldn’t be able to build the facility there.
Over the next several months, emails show Roswell Inc.’s public relations director worked with Brechbill and others to craft a press release and media plan about how to roll out the project to the public.
[ [RELATED: Residents show up at City Hall to oppose $50M tennis facility after project stalls] ]
The USTA also engaged a video production crew and paid them to shoot interviews with all of the players for a video news release.
As Petchenik reported Monday, city council members met in a closed-door meeting July 30th to approve a memorandum of understanding between the city and the Krause Foundation.
While some residents have suggested such a meeting violated state Sunshine Laws, Brechbill disagrees. She wrote:
“In accordance with the State law, these closed door sessions are intended for mayor and council, along with the city attorney and city administrator, to discuss matters related to real estate, personnel, and litigation issues only. Closure may only be called at a public meeting of the governing body.
"Because of the sensitivities around some of these discussions, all attendees are bound to keep the deliberations and discussions confidential unless required by law to disclose usually at an open meeting of Council. Topics that may be discussed in closure include appointments to boards and commissions [when the qualifications of private citizens are discussed], litigation matters, or matters relating to the purchasing, selling, or leasing of real estate,” she said.
Tyser now concedes the council was “over-excited” about the prospect of economic development.
“I certainly would like to get more public input. I’m not an expert in how you do that. In the past, there have been public meetings after an announcement,” he said. “That probably would have been a good thing to do. I think a much better job could have been done in the communication process.”
On the day after the 6-0 vote to move the MOU to a city council agenda, Stroud approved the press
release, exclaiming: “I am good to go. Let’s serve this up!”
After the project went public, an email Petchenik obtained from Scott Laakso, Hembree Park Athletic Coordinator, to the USTA said the announcement had “hit him like a ton of bricks.”
He told the AJC Thursday what he meant by that comment.
“It’s such a huge concept, and that’s why it’s such a big surprise," he said. “It had not been filtered down to the programming level. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.”
Sears told Petchenik she’s alarmed by the lengths the city went to keep the project under wraps for so long.
“What else is being done that’s not being brought to the public at this point?” she asked.
Sears said the city should have taken note of the engineering issues early on and moved the project to a new location.
“I just want them to be honest,” said Sears of the city council’s handling of the project. “I think that’s absolutely shameful. They had warnings and they knew this was going to be hard, and they were still willing to release an MOU that said they could start digging and cutting down trees the second it was signed.”