At the 24 September meeting of the TLNA Council, two neighbors of Reynolds Park spoke to the Council and described many of the problems that they were seeing happen at the tennis courts atop the pumping station in the park. They talked about finding broken glass and trash strewn about the courts, seeing people drinking and sleeping on the courts after park hours, being awakened by arguing and yelling coming from atop the pumping station and finding damage done to the tennis nets to such an extent that it made the courts unusable. One of the neighbors reported that she had called the police a number of times in response to the disturbances.

After hearing the report, President Richard Linster was asked if he knew if any of the people who had been responsible for many of the problems recently happening at Tenney Park were identified as participants in the Reynolds Park problems. He replied that he had checked with Madison Police Capt. George Silverwood and had been told that there were a few people who had been involved at both parks. Further discussion by members of the council addressed actions that the Council and neighborhood could take to respond to the current problems and thwart the rise of any new ones.

One of the neighborhood speakers offered to be responsible for locking the access gate and unlocking it if some type of locking mechanism were secured for her to use. Richard Linster stated that the Parks Department had told him, when he talked with them about the problems, that locking the courts at night after park hours would be acceptable. A motion was made by David Mandehr, seconded by Kathy Bresnehan and passed by the Council authorizing TLNA to purchase a locking mechanism for the tennis court gates if the city had none for that use. After the vote, the neighbor volunteered to be responsible for securing the court gates.

A check with the neighbor three weeks after the initiation of the locking action revealed no further problems.

-David Mandehr


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