OLYMPIA — Pickleball may soon be celebrated on motor vehicles across the state.<\/p>\n
Sen. John Lovick, D-Mill Creek, has introduced a bill to create a special license plate recognizing Washington’s official state sport, a title bestowed upon pickleball under a 2022 law. Lovick authored that one too.<\/p>\n
“It’s a great idea. It’s such a red-hot sport,” he said. “Everybody is playing pickleball.”<\/p>\n
Those behind the effort that produced last year’s law are the driving force behind this year’s pursuit.<\/p>\n
“We are people on a mission,” said Kate Van Gent of Mill Creek, a director of the Seattle Metro Pickleball Association.<\/p>\n
The display of pickleball on license plates throughout Washington will be a great way to help grow the sport and attract the attention needed to build more pickleball facilities, she said.<\/p>\n
Washington now offers 44 special license plates recognizing the military, sports teams, colleges, parks, firefighters, farmers, elk, orcas, lighthouses, the state flower, square dancers and wine.<\/p>\n
Senate Bill 5333 would authorize a plate recognizing the state sport. Proceeds from sales would go into a trust account managed by the Seattle Metro Pickleball Association and used to build and maintain courts dedicated to pickleball.<\/p>\n
Small sums could go to cities and counties to use for repairing existing public courts, Van Gent said. There’s also a larger goal of constructing a regional facility in Puget Sound with a couple dozen courts where major tournaments can be held, she said.<\/p>\n
The association “wants to show the community that pickleball is here to stay,” she said.<\/p>\n
There is a process to get a special plate.<\/p>\n
You need a sponsoring organization. It can be a nonprofit, a professional sports team or a government agency. You need to collect enough signatures to show that at least 3,500 plates will be purchased. You must provide a mock-up for the plate, draw up a marketing plan on how to spend sale proceeds and pay a $6,300 start-up fee to the Department of Licensing.<\/p>\n
Association members did it all in a handful of months.<\/p>\n
Van Gent recounted first learning of the idea from another director, Amy Greger, when they met for coffee at a cafe in Manson near Lake Chelan, where a pickleball tournament was taking place. That was April 30.<\/p>\n
The idea received the board’s backing in May and they started working on it full bore in August. The association launched a signature drive Sept. 10, during Pickleball Night at a Seattle Mariners game. By December, they had garnered 3,855 signatures, she said.<\/p>\n
Association leaders enlisted the help of four designers who came up with eight possible plate designs. The group conducted a poll and one entitled Pickleball Rising emerged as the clear favorite.<\/p>\n
Jason Laramie, of Seattle, came up with the design. Inspired by the ferry ride from Bainbridge Island, the birthplace of pickleball, the view is towards the east. A pickleball rises like the sun over the waters of the Puget Sound and Mount Rainier. There are two pickleball paddles on the left side.<\/p>\n
The group submitted all its materials to the Department of Licensing last week. The focus now is on the bill, which is in the Senate Transportation Committee.<\/p>\n
It will receive a hearing, said Sen. Marko Liias, D-Everett, the committee chair and a co-sponsor. <\/ins><\/p>\n The 105-day session is slated to end April 23. <\/ins><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Enthusiasts are teaming up on a bill for a special plate. Proceeds would build and maintain courts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":61616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,24,6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-61615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-northwest","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61615"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=61615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}