State Supreme Court Justice Tosses Lawsuit Over Dropped Bid for Pickleball in East Hampton Park

A Suffolk County Supreme Court justice this week dismissed a lawsuit filed by an East Hampton Village homeowner that had sought to stop the village from installing pickleball courts, a concert stage, an ice skating rink and lighting for athletic fields at Herrick Park.

The judge dismissed the lawsuit as moot, noting that the village had abandoned its plans to stripe one or more of the four tennis courts in the park for pickleball play and has made no official proposals for any of the other features cited in the lawsuit that would warrant injunctive action.

The first phase of renovations to the park were completed in June with no pickleball striping in place.

Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Joseph Santorelli said that in light of the pickleball courts being dropped from the plans, weighing in on any of the other conceptual ideas the lawsuit claimed were in the works would only be “advisory,” and he dismissed the suit in its entirety.

The lawsuit was brought by homeowners Michael and Barbara Bebon, who live just over a fence from the Herrick Park tennis courts, next to the Ladies Village Improvement Society.

When they filed the suit, in April, the Bebons said the village was planning to create pickleball courts when they refurbished the four existing tennis courts by adding striping that would allow at least one of the courts to be used for the newly popular game, as well as tennis.

But the village reversed course and dropped the pickleball striping from the first phase of renovations in the park, which included the resurfacing of the tennis courts, a rehabilitation of the park’s athletic fields, construction of new dugouts at the softball field and the removal of a basketball court.

Mayor Jerry Larsen said at the time that dropping the pickleball proposal and removing the basketball court were both decisions made in deference to the noise concerns the Bebons had raised.

The Bebons went ahead with the lawsuit because, they said, the mayor had also told them of plans for an ice rink and concert venue in the park as part of later phases of upgrades — which the village plans to largely pay for with donations raised by the East Hampton Village Foundation, a nonprofit group Larsen formed specifically to solicit donations from residents and businesses.

Larsen never denied that such features have been talked about for the park’s future, but no designs or proposals have ever been drawn up.

“We totally understood where the Bebons were coming from, with the noise concern, and that’s why we dropped pickleball,” Larsen said this week. “We told Mr. Bebon that and he sued us anyway, so we’re very pleased that the judge saw through the baloney.”