WETHERSFIELD - The Wethersfield Town Council has put the brakes on a plan to replace the Webb Elementary School Tennis Courts for $144,386--for now.

       The Council opted to table the discussion regarding the courts, which have been out of commission for the past couple of years due to safety hazards posed by their deterioration, in order to entertain objections raised by Councilors regarding the urgency of the issue and how high a priority the replacement should be.

       The decision to hold off on taking action was made when the Council convened Oct. 6.

       The motion, which was to accept a purchase order with Seymour-based R.S. Site and Sports LLC, will appear on the agenda at the next Council meeting scheduled for Oct. 20.

       â€�"I hope we don’t get cold feet on this because then the project will not happen,” said Mayor Paul Montinieri during the discussion. â€�"We’ll lose that grant.”

       The grant is $18,000 from the United States Tennis Association (USTA), which came after the organization did some free consulting for the town. USTA went over Wethersfield’s plans for the courts and made recommendations as well as assessed the town’s eligibility for financial assistance, according to Kathy Bagley of Wethersfield Social and Youth Services.

       At the meeting, Bagley reported fielding calls inquiring as to when the Webb Elementary School tennis courts would be back up and running on a regular basis. With the replacement of Wethersfield High School’s own courts a part of the renovation plans for that site, town residents have been going to Millwoods and Standish Park for their tennis needs.

       â€�"With a loss at the high school, that’s eight courts [left],” Bagley said. â€�"So there is definitely a need for this project.”

       But there are other areas in town that are in disrepair, and among them are the basketball courts at other schools. Councilor Mike Hurley expressed the desire to focus on those first and Councilor Stathis Manousos agreed.

       â€�"It makes me wonder if we should wait for the high school [courts] to come back online and then see,” Manousos said. â€�"Especially if we’re taking money away from basketball courts at other schools.”

       In that scenario, addressing the basketball court issue will take some waiting too, since the town does not currently have the funds to fix those, said Town Manager Jeff Bridges.

       â€�"To redo them it will cost more than what we have in the CIP budget,” Bridges said.

       Also, unlike the tennis courts at Webb, the basketball courts are not unusable, he said.

       The Council put $90,000 of CIP funds toward the project, in addition to $20,000 pegged as â€�"CIP Tennis Repairs”. An additional $17,000 came from the CIP Reserve, which currently has around $100,000 total, according to Bridges.

       This summer the Council opted for a rebid when three contractors came to the table with offers for different materials. The town’s original plan was to replace the courts using asphalt, but the bids indicated that the material would be too expensive. The town decided to go with post-tension concrete--the alternative offered during the process--and sent the firms back to rebid for the purpose of uniformity.

       R.S. Site and Sport LLC was the low bidder, according to Town Engineer and Director of Public Works Mike Turner.

       â€�"The bid was slightly higher than the money we budgeted,” Turner said. â€�"But there is an opportunity to save about $10,000.”

       That’s because the new courts will not require an underdrain, according to Turner.

       â€�"Because it’s a structural slab, and it’s an elevated site, they don’t see where groundwater is an issue,” he said. â€�"So it’s essentially spanning from one end to the other and not depending on those drains.”