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A survey that showed pickleball is not an important issue to Peachlanders rankled council’s top advocate for the sport.

A citizens survey answered by 412 people ranked pickleball in a bottom-10 list of important items. A few comments attached to the survey also were critical of pickleball.

Peachland last week voted to move ahead with plans to build up to four pickleball courts at Lambly Park

“Pickleball is the second lowest-ranked service in the importance category. Years ago when I went to SFU, there was a book on how to lie with statistics and this whether intended or not, in my opinion, is a perfect example of that,” said Coun. Randey Brophy at Tuesday’s council meeting.

“You have to look at what’s being ranked here relative to pickleball. Is pickleball more important than economic development? No. Tourism? No. Growth and development? No. Police, fire and ambulance? No. You see what I’m getting at, it’s a meaningless comparison.

“Nobody in their right mind is going to rank pickleball or any other sport ahead of basic services.

I would suggest in the future a more meaningful comparison would be to compare recreational services so that you rate these services head to head,” Brophy said.

“The largest demographic in our community is 55 up and we have not done a good job in getting additional recreational facilities for them,” he added.

“People are pulling that (survey) out and say there shouldn’t be any pickleball courts. It’s wrong.”

The most important issues cited by respondents in the survey were improving roads, sidewalks and streetlights; protecting environmentally sensitive areas; growth management; and Highway 97.

Least important topics were affordable and attainable housing; mitigating climate-change impacts; downtown revitalization; and higher-density, multi-family development downtown.

Fifty-eight per cent said they want growth to stay at the same rate it’s at now.

About half of respondents said the RCMP isn’t visible in the community.

Just over half want Highway 97 rerouted around the community.

Fifty per cent said council should raise taxes – if it has to – to maintain services.

No one in the 19-24 age group responded to the survey and there weren’t many responses from families with children either.