Hollister tennis courts hit by vandals, police say
Hollister police want to know who did thousands of dollars in damage to tennis courts at a city park sometime over the weekend. From start to finish, fixing the tennis courts took the city six weeks and $20,000. A day after it was almost complete, the courts were vandalized.
Yazmin Mandujano said she brings her son to Dunnes Park next to the tennis courts regularly and has been watching the progress. When she found out about the vandalism she couldn’t believe it.
“I think it’s messed up that someone would ruin something that’s for the community,” Mandujano said.
Hollister Police Chief David Westrick said over the weekend someone rode bicycles across the still wet asphalt on the tennis courts. Broken glass and food was also smeared everywhere.
“It’s really unfortunate that this community resource right here behind me was damaged by folks, that I don’t know why you would do that,” Westrick said.
The city manager was also out at Dunnes Park checking the cleanup on the courts. He said incidents like this are really unfortunate when the city is trying to improve parks in town for people like Mandujano and her son to enjoy.
“We allocated about $20,000 to resurface these tennis courts. But the new lines are in, we’re going to do some pickle ball lines and some junior lines for the kids and try to bring tennis back in to downtown,” Hollister city manager Bill Avera said.
Westrick said luckily they had only laid the first coat of asphalt down so the second surface layer was able to cover up the vandalism. He said investigators are reviewing the surveillance videos from the tennis courts, from the cameras up above. They are hoping cameras captured any footage to help police catch up with the vandals.
“Hopefully they do catch them, make them pay for what they did,” Mandujano said.
For now the courts remain locked and taped off. The city said it’s planning to re-open the courts May 4. The courts are used for youth club teams, but for now they’ll be playing at a nearby school.
