That aroused the public to a fever pitch to stop the destruction<\/a>. By standing up for beach basketball, people were defending tradition and a defining part of the city\u2019s character. They also proved that elected city leaders grossly underestimated the public\u2019s emotional attachment to the courts.<\/p>\n \u2018Deferred,\u2019 indefinitely<\/p>\n On Tuesday, they noisily crowded a commission meeting, for a vote to move ahead on the courts\u2019\u00a0 relocation. So many people insisted they stay put that the city deferred a decision \u2014 \u201cindefinitely,\u201d Mayor Dean Trantalis said.<\/p>\n It wouldn\u2019t have happened without a public outcry.<\/p>\n This movement has many faces: Dan Santoro, whose first spring break trip was in 1979. Sally Alshouse, a lifelong city resident. Tracy Powell. Chris Nelson. Nancy Thomas. Susan Peterson. \u201cBeachchair Greg\u201d Risley<\/a>. Devin Thomas. Barbra Stern<\/a>. Chris Stachowski. John Rodstrom III, and more.<\/p>\n \u201cYour mission is to serve the public, not the developers,\u201d Christine DeMarco told commissioners.<\/p>\n \u201cThe beach isn\u2019t yours to give away,\u201d resident Vicki Mowrey told them. \u201cYou never had any public outreach on this \u2026 you can stop this.\u201d<\/p>\n City of Fort Lauderdale<\/p>\n Dana Coronato of Fort Lauderdale pleaded with the city to leave its beachside basketball courts alone on Dec. 16, 2025.<\/p>\n Dana Coronato grew up playing on those courts. She played college basketball<\/a> at Catholic University in Washington D.C. and is now a digital strategist and market researcher.<\/p>\n She said encouragement from male players on those courts gave her the confidence to succeed in life.<\/p>\n They said, \u201cYou deserve to be out here. You deserve to crush it. What do I do? I go out in business, and I crush it. I speak up. I come to meetings, and I stand up. I learned that from my community.\u201d<\/p>\n A done deal? Not quite<\/p>\n The city approved the Bahia Mar deal at a meeting on Jan. 9, 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n Buried in the paperwork was an 18-page contract between the project\u2019s oversight board, the Bahia Mar Community Development District (CDD), and the city. It spelled out various terms, including a three-year timetable to convert the courts to pickleball. (The official description is wrong; the document says the courts are south of a pedestrian bridge when they are north.)<\/p>\n Few people, if any, noticed the language at the time, as the debate focused on air rights<\/a> and the 240-foot height of the four condo towers. Former Commissioner Warren Sturman tried to call up the deal to debate it and change it, but no one supported him.<\/p>\n Only much later, when the city put up a sign about a planned \u201cconversion\u201d of the courts to pickleball, did people realize what could happen.<\/p>\n The sign was a pathetic excuse for real transparency. But in this case, it did the trick.<\/p>\n People circulated petitions<\/a> (at the latest count, 8,874 signers) and used social media<\/a> to mobilize an army of supporters.<\/p>\n We added our voice: \u201cKeep basketball on the beach,\u201d we said in a May 6 editorial<\/a>, noting that this was yet another case of private profit overwhelming public access. \u201cA bad deal,\u201d we wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n After Tuesday\u2019s outpouring of opposition, Trantalis said: \u201cWhen the public speaks up, we need to listen.\u201d<\/p>\n Joining the mayor in voting to defer action were commissioners Pamela Beasley-Pittman and Ben Sorensen.<\/p>\n The beach-area commissioner, Steve Glassman, voted to defer, as did John Herbst, but Glassman was uncharacteristically subdued on an issue affecting the heart of his district. Rather than vocally support his constituents, he cited the risk to the city by reneging on the courts\u2019 relocation.<\/p>\n The risk appears to be low. That 2024 agreement has language protecting the city. It says changes to improvements require the CDD\u2019s approval, \u201cwhich shall not be unreasonably withheld,\u201d a phrase emphasized by City Attorney Shari McCartney.<\/p>\n The developer\u2019s promise<\/p>\n In a statement to the Editorial Board Thursday, the Bahia Mar developer, Jimmy Tate, promised \u201ca good-faith effort to agree upon a mutually acceptable solution that serves the best interests for all of Fort Lauderdale.\u201d<\/p>\n To all the residents who show your love for this great city by fighting to save beach basketball, we say, don\u2019t stop now.<\/p>\n As every basketball player knows: Never quit. Start a crusade to save public land, and remind elected officials that you run Fort Lauderdale \u2014 not them. Aim higher to save what\u2019s important, and carry it through to the next city election and beyond.<\/p>\n The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When people organize and speak with a clear, compelling voice, change happens. People in Fort Lauderdale fought to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2853,249,251,250,114,482],"class_list":{"0":"post-88315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-lauderdale","8":"tag-editorials","9":"tag-fort-lauderdale","10":"tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","11":"tag-fort-lauderdale-news","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-opinion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Dana](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Coronato.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Removing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/FinePrintBKB.jpg\")
Fort Lauderdale
\n![\"This](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/ConversionSign2.jpg\")
This sign spawned a grass-roots movement to save beach basketball in Fort Lauderdale.<\/p>\n