‘We’re just a target’: Pickleball players call for more security

The president of the Camas-Washougal Pickleball Club (CWPC) is calling for increased security measures at Wolfe Courts after a large storage box containing a variety of equipment and supplies was stolen in late October.

One of the club’s two metal rigid boxes was taken from the courts, located at Hathaway Park in Washougal, on Oct. 25, according to the Washougal Police Department (WPD). The box contained an automated defibrillator, squeegees, towels, batteries, a first-aid kit, napkins, paper towels, toilet paper, hand sanitizers, measuring tape, a screwdriver, a wrench, lost-and-found items, water bottles, and pickleball balls and paddles, CWPC President Lynda Boesel said.

“(The box) had anything that we needed,” Boesel said. “I’m not going to put those rigid boxes back out in the open because, in my opinion, we’re just a target, so we have to find a better security system.”

Boesel said she discovered the 6-foot-long box was missing when she went to the courts on the morning of Oct. 25.

“It was my birthday, the weather was great, and I had planned on playing,” she said. “I walk onto the courts, and somebody says, ‘What happened to the box?’ I go, ‘What are you talking about?’ And they said, ‘The box is completely gone.’ That’s the first time I heard of it. I was very sad and very heartbroken. I had to walk out to the parking lot because I was so upset. I was taken aback.”

The box was securely affixed to a chain-link fence on the west side of the courts, according to Boesel.

“The rigid boxes have two internal locks,” she said. “You just push them in. We had a lock-box on the side of the box that held the key. It was a coded lock-box that had a key in it to get to the locks on the rigid box. It was very well secured. Somebody had to have somehow gotten to the inside of the box because it was bolted from the inside in three places to a two-by-four that was chained and bolted to another two-by-four outside of the fence.”

Boesel filed a police report, but admitted that “there’s not really much they can do.”

“There are no security cameras, and I’m not sure that would even help,” she said. “We have very low security at the courts, and understandably, there’s not enough funding to have that kind of security. We’ve had those boxes on those courts for quite a while with no problems.”

The WPD has suspended the case pending further leads, according to an incident report written by officer Kyle Kinnan.

“Based on the size and weight of the box, I would assume a vehicle had driven up the paved path from the upper Hathaway Park parking lot when the theft occurred,” Kinnan said in the report. “There is poor lighting in this area and no cameras. I discussed with Lynda about seeing if they could install motion lights and suggested, if they replace the Rigid box, to secure it to the second box along with the fence to make it harder to steal.”

The courts have been victimized by other security-related issues in the past, according to Boesel.

“We did have an incident last year when two leaf blowers were taken, but that was a case of negligence on somebody’s part of not locking the box,” she said. “We have had signs removed. The porta-potties were tipped over. We have had your typical vandalism stuff, more annoying than anything.”

Boesel is planning to reach out to Washougal Mayor David Stuebe and City Manager David Scott to discuss the issue and request that the CWPC, a chapter of the Vancouver-based Columbia River Pickleball Club, use the City-owned storage building next to the courts.

“We’re not even asking for the entire building,” she said. “I have suggested partitioning a small space that we could use in there. I don’t want to disrespect the City because that is their property. We have decided that we could partition it off so that we don’t get into their things and they don’t have to worry about our things. If we get that building, our box will go in there, locked and coded. We don’t want to just randomly put stuff in there. Everything’s still going to be under lock and key. It could be a really tight, secure system.”

Stuebe mentioned the incident to the Washougal City Council on Oct. 28.

“This really saddens me. I don’t like hearing this stuff,” he said. “I talked to (Boesel), and it sounded like (the box) was pretty well secured. We’d like to see if maybe we can let them use that brick building to lock their stuff in, and I’m going to be talking to her again about some other options. But according to the police report, whoever stole that thing, (it was a professional job). It wasn’t kids. It was chained. It was bolted from the inside of the box. It’s just sad when so many people who are doing such great things for the city.We’ll fix that problem, and hopefully it will never happen again.”

Boesel said she is going to start limiting the amount of people that receive the code to the key box.

“Our club is just getting so large that we have to limit the amount of people that have access to the codes,” she said. “We have gained a little over 100 members since January. We have 300 members. I quit giving out the code because I was feeling that was a little bit of a threat — not that I don’t trust people, but it’s easy to just pass (the code) along. That part is going to be a lot more secure.”

Boesel has launched a GoFundMe to solicit donations to help pay for replacement items, but doesn’t expect to have them in place for several months.

“It’s going to take some time because none of this is going to get back into a secure place until March of 2025,” she said. “The wintertime is always the time when things happen. It gets darker sooner, people are wandering around more in the parks, and I am not going to even try to implement anything until spring of 2025, so hopefully by then, we’ll have worked out the kinks, and the most secure option for us is that storage building on the property that is currently not being used.”

In the meantime, Boesel is asking CWPC members to bring their own equipment and supplies.

“Members are stepping up to the plate,” she said. “I’ve told everybody, ‘My apologies, but you’re going to have to bring your own balls. If you have leaf blowers, please bring them. If you have any squeegees or any kind of cleaning items, please bring them,’ because we have nothing. I have complete faith that our members will do (what they can) to help out.”

Boesel said that the CWPC “brings in a lot of revenue to the cities of Camas and Washougal” via out-of-town visitors, and donated two-thirds of the funds that it raised at its annual fundraiser earlier this year to the WPD and the Camas-Washougal Fire Department.

“We are well-known for our reputation, and I don’t want it to get destroyed throughout any of this,” she said. “We are a big part of this community here in Washougal. We want to maintain our reputation because of the support that we get. We have the most wonderful group of people that give us a reputation of being a big part of this community. We are well known for our (positive) attitudes and our friendliness, and it makes a big difference, because (some of the other other clubs are) not like us.”

Boesel declined to divulge the value of the stolen items, but The GoFundMe (gofundme.com/f/help-cwpc-club-replace-sto len-supplies) has a goal of $3,500.

“We have 300 members, and part of the membership (fees) that we get goes towards buying and supplying all the items needed to play at Hathaway Park,” Boesel said. “Our club just cannot afford to replace these items. That’s why I’m asking for a GoFundMe, because I don’t want to deplete the current funding for our chapter.”