Lincoln to get pickleball courts

A resolution was adopted at Tuesday's City Council meeting to convert the concrete slab at McBean Park into six permanent pickleball courts. The project is allotted $160,000 from the Fiscal Year 2022-2023 Capital Improvement Projects budget from Park PFE Fund 246. No date was set on when the courts would be completed. Approximately a dozen local pickleball players showed up to the meeting to support the action. Currently, the city of Lincoln does not have pickleball courts. Locals who participate in the game travel to a Citrus Heights park to play. One pickleball player said she paid $80 for a year at Rusch Park in Citrus Heights to utilize its pickleball courts. She said they have 13 courts and they're always full so she's happy to have the opportunity to play in Lincoln. Also in Sun City Lincoln Hills, its courts are popular but the courts are for use by residents only. The resolution was adopted with applause in the City Council meeting room. There was no opposition about the proposed McBean Park courts at Tuesday's City Council meeting. In other news A financial transparency dashboard for the city of Lincoln will be available online Wednesday at lincoln.ca.gov. The new dashboard's purpose is to give Lincoln residents insight into city funds and how they are spent. "You can really learn a lot about the city's budget," said Lincoln City Manager Sean Scully. "Any questions you have can probably be found there. The amount of information at our fingertips will be no different than if you picked up a phone and called someone directly." The dashboard will include an overview of Lincoln's finances with categories including revenue, expenses, funds and departments. Nita Wracker, the Lincoln finance director, said "this is just" the dashboard's "beginning phase." Wracker would like feedback from the council and community about how to improve the dashboard, which is scheduled to be updated monthly. "We've come so far in the last four years," said Councilmember Alyssa Silhi. "There was a lot of mistrust in the community but now the transparency is real." For more information visit lincolnca.gov. Lincoln Public Safety Chief Matt Alves gave an update on the speeding issue on First Street. Community members raised concerns about the area's safety, due to frequent speeding, at previous council meetings. Alves said that a new speed trailer will help the department collect important data, including cataloging every vehicle speeding, the time of the violation and the percentage of vehicles going above the speed limit. Alves said the information obtained will be used in deciding the best times to patrol the area and determining any other measures needed to reduce speed on First Street.