Tennis Pro Shop Proposed for the Cays

With the new opening in the village this week, the tennis players in the Coronado Cays might be feeling left out. They shouldn’t.

Building on the summer youth tennis program, the Recreation Department is developing a satellite program for the Cays that looks to include year-round junior tennis, adult clinics and private instruction. A mini pro shop has also been proposed.

The shop, which opens next week, will be run by tennis pro Phil Hopkins, who oversaw tennis in Coronado for 18 years. The modular building that served as the Tennis Pro Shop at the Glorietta courts during the construction of the new Tennis Center will house the shop.

“It’s a lot like the pro shop at the old tennis center,” Hopkins said. “We’ll have rackets, balls and shoes. No clothing, though; we’ll leave that to the new tennis center.”

The proposed contract for the mini shop is the same the city struck with 40-Love, the for the Glorietta courts. Both will pay the city 5 percent of gross sales, less sales tax.

Hopkins lost his job at the Glorietta courts when City Council voted to revise the city’s tennis program and hire a nonteaching coordinator to run all tennis programs.

The idea of a tennis shop in the Cays is not new. Though it’s been discussed many times, no one is sure the shop will fly. Because of the uncertainty, the shop will open on a one-year trial basis.

“If it succeeds, we’ll keep it open,” Recreation Department Director Linda Rahn said. “If it doesn’t, we’ll just close it.”

Rahn also stressed that while Hopkins is currently running the junior tennis program at the Cays, he is doing so as one of the city’s tennis instructors.

“Once the new tennis coordinator is hired, that person will be in charge,” Rahn said.

The council will vote on the trial tennis shop at its meeting on Tuesday, June 21.

The June 21 meeting will also feature a vote on a new agreement between the city and its firefighters. The two-year memorandum of understanding calls on firefighters to pay 9 percent of their retirement contribution, which was previously funded 100 percent by the city. In exchange, the firefighters will get an 8 percent base pay increase.

An additional trade-off to the pay raise was the elimination of 12 hours of leave time for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and an adjustment to the holiday in lieu pay rate, that is, money paid in exchange for working on a holiday. The new pay rate will be 4.8 percent across the board. Before, rates ranged from 4.03 percent to 4.33 percent, depending on rank and classification.

These and other minor adjustments should not change what the city currently pays for fire service, the staff report said.

The council will also discuss two issues raised by  in the next meeting. One involves transportation alternatives in an effort to reduce the city’s “carbon footprint,” the other deals with beach-sand replenishment.