Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi, I'm Shelly Maurer and I'm Cher Emrick. Welcome to Life Lessons from Pickleball, where we engage with pickleball players from around the world about life on and off the court. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to Life Lessons from Pickleball. Everyone we are thrilled to have with us today Jim Lopez. Jim, you are the Deputy City Manager for External Affairs at the City of Kirkland, Washington, our home base, and Shelly and I recently had the fun opportunity to be on your podcast this week in Kirkland, along with your terrific podcast team, Kate, David and Nate, and we absolutely had a blast.

Speaker 2: 0:43

We did too. We've already got the band back together.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Jim, we learned on your show how passionate you are about the sport of pickleball.

Speaker 2: 0:53

Love pickleball.

Speaker 1: 0:54

But before we get into that, tell us what the Deputy City Manager of External Affairs does.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Yeah, I mean as I say every week on our podcast, I am one of two deputy city managers at the city and my purview is more external facing. So I'm the deputy for external affairs and we have a deputy for operations and together we work to run the city manager's office for our city manager, Kurt Triplett. My purview is like civic engagement and communications, economic development, diversity and belonging. I have the arts commission and the tourism and development committee and the library board, so it's a lot of how we communicate to the community and how we listen to the community. And I also run the city manager's office, so I kind of serve as the city manager's chief of staff as well. So I have that internal function. So there's it's a it's a full day.

Speaker 1: 2:02

I know we we mentioned that we're going to ask you about your job, so you had to take notes.

Speaker 2: 2:06

I took notes. That is a fact. I was like let me write a few of them down. I don't want to leave a line of business out.

Speaker 1: 2:14

So what inspired you to even get into this business of working in city administration?

Speaker 2: 2:21

That's a wonderful question. I am a lawyer and I practiced law for many years. I'm originally from the Boston area and, um, I really, uh, really appreciate and love the idea of um communicating and advocating and kind of being in the the you know the battle of ideas and and and that kind of evolves into like trying to do things for the betterment of society and and I felt like my skills had evolved to the point where I would like to be in the public square, you know making policy and talking to folks about that and really doing the, the important work of trying to listen to the different perspectives and synthesize those perspectives and try to come up with something that improves the quality of life for folks and enhances the level of public engagement.

Speaker 2: 3:21

You definitely do that and you are so well suited because, you're an awesome communicator and so much fun exists is try to try to both give folks information about the city, much needed information what's coming up this week, what's coming up at council, what you might want to tune into but do it in a way that promotes a sense of community, Meeting wonderful people like you and your cool podcast, and how much you love and care for the community. I think it helps build a space where folks feel more comfortable to learn about the city and then contribute to the city.

Speaker 1: 4:11

And, I think, to learn in a more fun and interesting way too. And now we know who we go to if we want more pickleball.

Speaker 2: 4:19

That's right. I have no doubt that that will be a consequence of wonderful. One of our pickleball episode is, you know, there's a huge demand for courts.

Speaker 1: 4:33

And.

Speaker 2: 4:34

I'm in that line too, by the way.

Speaker 1: 4:36

I love being a good pickleball court. How did you first get introduced to pickleball?

Speaker 2: 4:42

You know, cher, I thought about that, uh, for the show, and I know I played years ago, you know, before it was kind of an emerging, you know, professional sport and loved it. Um, I had a wood paddle and and then, but flash forward to just a few years ago when it was really taking off across america. I can't remember the minute that it came into my world, but I started watching it on YouTube and I'm a big tennis fan. I grew up in the John McEnroe era love, love, love watching and playing tennis and I just took to it. I just started watching all the tournaments and got to know all the professional players and it became a passion.

Speaker 1: 5:32

And where do you know it? You felt like you were playing, just like them. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:36

So the barrier for me? I was a pretty good tennis player, I had a big forehand and my barrier was the serve. I just, you know, every once in a while I could hit a good serve, but not consistent enough and there was still a lot of work and don't have that problem with pickleball, so you know the serve is meant to go in.

Speaker 1: 5:59

Right, exactly. You're not trying to win the game with your serve.

Speaker 2: 6:08

So I was like this is a sport.

Speaker 1: 6:09

I could spend a lot of time with Very fun and do you play often?

Speaker 2: 6:14

You know I go through phases Through the winter. I wanted to get on the court more indoor. It was just harder to find time. So definitely I play more. When the weather is nice I try to get to. Everest and I've played up at our Houghton Park and Ride a lot and I play on tennis courts, you know, even though the net's a little higher. So you know recently a little bit more, but I'm looking to ramp up when the weather gets nice.

Speaker 1: 6:40

Cool, and so is there any planning around more courts in the Kirkland area?

Speaker 2: 6:50

Yes, there absolutely is. A couple of things are going on the school districts, I think at Kirkland Middle School and Finneal Middle School. Maybe I can follow up with information. I think they're striping the courts for pickleball.

Speaker 1: 7:04

Oh nice. Yeah, so that striping the courts for pickleball, oh nice.

Speaker 2: 7:06

Yeah, so that will provide a lot of good access and you know we have the four courts up at the Houghton Park and Play. It's very popular and we are making plans because those are temporary. Yeah so we are making plans to put courts in um when we make that transition and one of the areas that I absolutely love, by the way and um is definitely in the mix is right downtown, by the basketball court in the skate park.

Speaker 2: 7:39

Uh, yeah, making one of those tennis courts, like everest turning it into three courts. And you know, you have that nice hill and you can walk up and head over to this wonderful shops over at Kirkland Urban. So yeah, hang on.

Speaker 1: 7:56

Hang on, and are you able to talk about what the plans are for the Houghton area? Yeah, or is that still kind of QT?

Speaker 2: 8:03

Well, no, no, not at all the contrary. The principal option right now is to cite the Seattle Kraken hockey iceplex there.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Wow.

Speaker 2: 8:13

Yeah, so we've been working with the Kraken and I don't know if it's going to happen.

Speaker 2: 8:19

It's still not an agreement, but we do have an RFP out to see if builders are interested and the Kraken, if the Kraken is interested and I know they're working with at least one other jurisdiction, but right now that is that would be. The most likely scenario is we put a the ice flex and that would come with a beautiful 12,000 square foot recreational center for the community. Yeah, and we would get that as part of the deal. In other words, the Kraken would build out what we call a warm shell and our proposal is to do tenant improvements as well, certain of them, and we even have on our website, which I can send you a link to, images of the community center. It's desperately needed the idea of more space for people to come and meet and enjoy each other. So that's the big idea right now for the park and play. But stay tuned on that because it's a fluid situation.

Speaker 1: 9:16

You bet, will there be pickleball courts inside that structure?

Speaker 2: 9:21

Unfortunately. No, it's really utilitarian space. It's just beautiful rooms and visual areas, but we got our eyes on the pickleball. We know that the demand is there, so stay tuned on that as well.

Speaker 1: 9:40

Nice and having you so passionate about pickleball, that helps a lot. Yeah, oh yeah so passionate about pickleball. That helps a lot. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah yeah, because I was gonna say the popularity of pickleball has really created challenges for all city managers, I'm sure, yeah, I mean it's um.

Speaker 2: 9:55

The game itself has this wonderful community aspect to it, right? Yeah people play pickleball in big numbers and and you know of. Of course there's singles too, but I think for the most part you're playing doubles, right? Is that your experience?

Speaker 1: 10:13

Yes.

Speaker 2: 10:14

And you know you get the lines of people waiting and you talk and it's really become a really nice way to share your experiences with the community. And yeah, so it's, it's, it has multiple levels of benefit. You know, one of the challenges is that it's loud.

Speaker 1: 10:31

Yes, it is which is what we love about it, but neighbors don't necessarily love it.

Speaker 2: 10:37

It's got that magnificent sound that you know. You know you're in the game, but it's not so magnificent for people around the courts and we acknowledge that. So part of the planning around where to site pickleball has to include those considerations.

Speaker 1: 10:55

You bet, you bet. So you have so much on your plate, I mean, when you start identifying all the different areas that you're responsible for, not to mention even just running the office. What are some of the most important projects that you have been a part of that you're really proud about or you're excited about?

Speaker 2: 11:18

Yeah, I mean I have you know, going way back. I worked on our. I started at the city as the human resources director. I came from Washington DC. I worked in the Obama administration, kurt Tripple and I went to graduate school together, so we've known each other for a while.

Speaker 2: 11:34

He's our city manager, so you know I've had an enormous, a broad diversity of really cool things to work on, and one of them was designing our health plan, where we cited a employee clinic, a near-site clinic, so we call it the Consumer Driven Medical Home Care, and so I'm very proud of that. It's our plan designed to this very day, flash forward. Now I've been in this office since 2018, I think it's 2018, I think and I've worked on many, many public-facing projects, the most recent of which are the.

Speaker 2: 12:22

I'm working very closely with all of our efforts to meet the generational challenge of homelessness. I'm the lead person on the IcePlex, so I work directly with the Seattle Kraken on all of those negotiations and you know I've had a lot to do with how the city continues to build and make important relational connections to our community to enhance our ability to be a belonging community, which I think we very much are. So I've had a lot of just amazing things to work on. I'm very proud of and I'm just so proud of the city. I think it's the best city in the country and I just in large measure because of the people that live here.

Speaker 1: 12:58

I agree with you on that one, Jim.

Speaker 1: 13:00

I totally agree with you on that, and I hope people come and visit and come and stay. What I'm impressed with, I've actually started watching the meetings of the city council. Never was interested After I met you, Jim, and learned about your podcast, which is so much fun to watch, and I actually really enjoy watching those city council. They have the video online and so I'm able to learn about it. I see all the different people. I'm so impressed with the number of people who are actively making kirkland a wonderful place to live and I have been remiss in not being involved. I'm going to become much more involved thanks to your inspiration k.

Speaker 1: 13:46

Kate's, dave's and Nate's, I mean, you all are just very inspiring and yeah, it's something that, for most of us, we can just sit back and enjoy or critique or take part in or not take part in, and no skin off the nose, as my dad would have said. But then there are those of you who are putting in blood, sweat and tears and making this place and a lot of laughter, and making this place an amazing place to live, and I'm just personally very grateful to you.

Speaker 2: 14:20

Well, that just absolutely made my day because, thank you so much. I mean full stop. It is really our hope and really very intentional actions to do that Like we want people to feel like. First you have a relationship with the government and the people of the government so that you feel comfortable and safe and empowered to come and talk to us about the kind of community that you want to live in. And that's taking all ideas. You know you have to really embrace all the different perspectives and then if you can figure out how to create a space where those conversations sometimes not easy conversations can happen in a way where people, everybody feels heard, then you know you're doing great things for civic, civic society, civic life, and that's our goal. And you know it makes me feel especially good because we rolled the dice with the podcast. You know we just said we're going to do something creative, we're going to try to have these communications from a different angle and hearing your response and how we've connected is the kind of feedback we were hoping to receive.

Speaker 1: 15:32

And I actually want to put it out to everyone else around the country, around the world, that it's such a great idea for governments to step down from this pedestal that we usually hold you all up on and to relate one-on-one and your podcast this week in Kirkland. By the way, this week in Kirkland your podcast is so much fun. The first maybe 10 minutes or so is about what's going on locally and, honestly, even people across the country would get a lot out of that information because it can give them ideas on what they could be doing in their own cities, Right. And then you interview people like Shelly and me, but also others. You just had a Danny Marie, who's helping people from all different fields in entertainment. She helps them fulfill their dreams. And then you also had Aaron Goldsmith. Is it Goldsmith?

Speaker 2: 16:27

Yes.

Speaker 1: 16:27

Who is that? Mariner's sportscaster.

Speaker 2: 16:31

Yeah, he was so much fun.

Speaker 1: 16:32

Oh my gosh, and you guys are a hoot. You and your team are absolutely hilarious, and so it's just a fun way to get information about what's going on locally, but also to get to know the other people in our community. I hope every city does what you're doing. I think it's fantastic.

Speaker 2: 16:51

You know it's interesting we're trying to get. Thank you so much, I mean that's our goal.

Speaker 1: 16:56

That is our goal.

Speaker 2: 16:57

We got a text Like we're trying to get. We're asking folks to text in the show and give us ideas. We got a text from a person saying thank you so much for the podcast. It makes me feel safe oh, that's sweet, isn't it? It's really sweet, yeah to meet your civic leaders and all the wonderful people that contribute to the community the guests and hear them in a fun, you know slightly irreverent way where we're just trying to, you know, have a conversation.

Speaker 2: 17:30

It, you know, it makes you feel more connected and to hear that kind of feedback. Really, it really, uh, touched true, it really makes you feel approachable right, that's right.

Speaker 1: 17:40

Which makes people feel safe. Yes, yeah, that's excellent, which isn't the case always.

Speaker 2: 17:46

Yeah, right.

Speaker 1: 17:49

So back to pickleball. When we were on your podcast, it was so fun. You had your three Fs of pickleball. Do you remember those? I love those. Okay, you are three.

Speaker 2: 17:56

Fs of pickleball. Do you remember those? I love those. Okay, we have a total connection. We didn't practice this right. I did a little homework. The three things that I talked about were flow, the state of flow. I think the game is just easy to learn but very difficult to master, you know. Yeah so it puts you in this enjoyable state right off the bat. Then the next thing I personally think is you get to look great. Sorry, but I love me a good tennis outfit, which is now a pickleball outfit, basically.

Speaker 2: 18:30

The fashion, the fashion. That's right. That's F number three. And then the last one of course I had was the community. It's just such a social game. It's easy to understand how it's taking off because it's a place to go to meet folks and get on a text chain or listserv and you know meet up and you know just learn about who your neighbors are.

Speaker 1: 18:56

Just fun. I love that. Fun fashion and flow. Fun fashion and flow.

Speaker 2: 18:59

Fun, fashion and flow.

Speaker 1: 19:02

And your three are. Our three are joy, empowerment and community, and they line right up with yours. If I'm in joy fashion. If we have the right outfit on, we're empowered right.

Speaker 2: 19:18

What is fashion if it's not empowerment?

Speaker 1: 19:26

And so, with all that you've been doing in your political life, your administrative life, in your communications and playing pickleball, have you come across some life lessons that either you've learned on the court that you use in your life, or lessons that you learned in your life that you find yourself using on the court?

Speaker 2: 19:48

Yes, and I absolutely love, love, love this as the thesis of your show, thank you. I just want to say that, thank you. You know, finding insight wherever you can is a lifelong passion and endeavor right.

Speaker 1: 20:05

Indeed, indeed.

Speaker 2: 20:06

Okay, so my life lesson, which is not an original thought, but definitely a thought that resonates with me, is sometimes you have to take a step back to take a step forward.

Speaker 1: 20:18

Say more about that.

Speaker 2: 20:19

So in pickleball, this is my experience in pickleball, so it becomes pickleball to life, right For me.

Speaker 1: 20:25

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:26

So I came into the game of pickleball with a really, you know, strong forehand, topspin forehand. I came up in that kind of era when the game was I don't know, maybe it was before, but big topspin was coming in. You know the big wind up and there is a certain level of pickleball where if you hit the ball really hard that you're gonna win. Like if you're out there, I think, with you know folks that are kind of learning the game uh, I was and you come in and you just have a lot of brute force, hit it hard, maybe he'll topspin on it. You're probably going to prevail over someone of that level. Not so much with the better folks. They're like hit it harder, come on hit it harder and they'll just have you running all over the place.

Speaker 2: 21:18

You know, especially in doubles, right, I guess in singles the game is evolving, it's a little bit different. So in order to get better, I had to stop, and so that meant I was going to lose my advantage over folks at the beginner level, which was my level, and I've played more since and I consider myself to be a reasonably good player. Now you lose that advantage. So now, in order to get better, I had to take the speed off the ball. I had to get the ball in the kitchen. I had to learn those very difficult shots that have a trajectory, they kind of loop up and they're very touch shots and then it gets you into the net. You know dinking the ball drop shot. Third shot drop right.

Speaker 1: 22:14

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:15

Third shot drop and that's what gets you in the game with the higher level players, at least in my experience for sure so the lesson was you know you gotta, even though it might be attractive in the short term, to keep hitting the ball hard, you're not going to grow in the long term. So there's probably other areas in life where, if you reflect on that sometimes you have to, the skills that you need for the long-term growth might be not the same skills that you have for short term.

Speaker 1: 22:51

Oh, I love that A life lesson. I love that A life lesson. I love that. In fact, that's part of what our coaches my coaches, trying to teach us is have a strategy. Don't just hit the ball. Have a strategy why you're hitting the ball, the way you're hitting it, where you want to hit the ball. Be intentional in every moment, whereas powerballing, you just hit the ball as hard as you can and just hope they don't get it back.

Speaker 1: 23:19

So I love that Step back from what we typically would do and make sure it's really what is going to take us in the long run to where we want to go.

Speaker 2: 23:30

You've said it better than I. No, I didn't?

Speaker 1: 23:33

I just made a few words out of that really wonderful explanation.

Speaker 2: 23:38

Good on you. Yeah, sometimes the easier thing isn't necessarily. Maybe sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn't the thing that's needed in the moment, and I love your thought about the thinking strategically you know you got to take a minute and assess what's needed in the moment.

Speaker 1: 23:55

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:56

Yeah, that's my life lesson or my pickleball lesson.

Speaker 1: 23:59

I leave it to others to extrapolate.

Speaker 1: 24:03

It's your pickleball lesson that you're taking into life, and I will too. I love that, jim. This has just been a hoot. Yeah, you are a very busy guy and, as you said, even today you are chockabuck full and we are so grateful that you took this time to talk with us. And please say hi to Kate, david and Nick. Oh, I will, and we just had so much fun. And again this Week in Kirkland is your podcast, and we hope people all across the country will listen. You'll have a blast listening to that show.

Speaker 2: 24:35

Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1: 24:36

And support your cities and if you're in Kirkland, support the city of Kirkland. Oh, thank you Because there are a lot of people like you doing incredible work for us.

Speaker 2: 24:47

You too, are absolutely wonderful. Thank you so much, it's been a joy.

Speaker 1: 24:52

Thank you, jim, and thank you all. Oh, my gosh, what fun. And thank you so much for tuning in today and, as they say, in this Week in Kirkland, don't forget to like, subscribe and share. Like, subscribe and share.

Speaker 2: 25:06

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 25:08

And we'll look forward to another conversation next week. Bye, bye, bye. Thank you. If you love our podcast, we'd be so grateful if you'd take a few seconds to follow or subscribe to Life Lessons from Pickleball. This ensures you'll never miss an episode and helps us continue these wonderful conversations. On Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you listen, go to the show page and tap the follow button in the top right corner, and on YouTube, click the subscribe button under any of the episodes. Thanks so much. Hope to see you on the court.