On the 29th day of July, 2024, God said “Let them play pickleball.”

In a letter obtained by Arthur, Peterborough Mayor, Jeff Leal, wrote that he had allegedly conferred with the Lord God, who had personally delivered to him a pro-Pickleball message of sporting, and anointed him with the task of converting the unfaithful.

“Hear ye, hear ye, City councillors and true believers both,” the letter begins. “The Lord hath decreed to me that I must get the Bonnerworth Park Redevelopment done, such that all residents of the Peterborough and greater Kawarthas region might hear the gospel that is the fast-growing sport of pickleball.”

The revelation comes days after the Chair of the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board wrote to Leal expressing “disappointment” with the City’s handling of the Bonnerworth Park Redevelopment project and its potential impact on the vulnerable community of local Catholic school children.

Leal’s response to the School Board’s concerns (beyond prophesying that St. Peter’s Secondary students will soon be playing pickleball in a freshly-paved park) seems to have been the theological equivalent of “asking to speak to a manager.” Sources close to him revealed that the Mayor undertook a grueling pilgrimage to Bonnerworth earlier this week to ask for a divine consultation.

“Just as Moses climbed Mount Horeb and received the word of God, Mayor Leal climbed the pitcher’s mound at Bonnerworth Park,” an anonymous City spokesperson revealed. In response to follow-up questions, the spokesperson was quick to reassure Arthur that the mayor “takes his job very seriously.”

Apparently, the mayor’s appeals to a higher power were well received, as the letter which Arthur obtained outlines a series of guidelines for the Bonnerworth Park Redevelopment project, which the letter claims come directly from the mouth of God.

The new guidelines, which are presented in the form of ten imperative commandments, are slated to be presented to council when they reconvene from their month-long recess next week.

The proposed amendments to By-law 19-074, the City’s Parks and Facilities By-law, read as follows:

1. Thou shalt have no other racket sports before me—especially not Tennis.
2. Thou shalt not expect of me any undue community consultation.
3. Thou shalt not take the Mayor’s name in vain (nor that of his wife).
4. Remember that the weekend is for the playing of pickleball above all else.
5. Honour thy mayor and thy City Staff.
6. Thou shalt not claim pickleball is a sport for boomers.
7. Thou shalt not post more bait on r/Peterborough.
8. Thou shalt not egg thy neighbour’s house for supporting the Bonnerworth Park Redevelopment plan.
9. Thou shalt not make shit up about the alleged back-room dealings of your City.
10. Thou shalt not covet other sites on which to build pickleball courts. Only Bonnerworth will do.

The final vote is scheduled for Monday in what is expected to be a long and terse meeting of Peterborough City Council.

Members of the “Save Bonnerworth Park” group have decried Leal’s gambit as an “appeal to authority,” calling it a “circumvention of the democratic process’ natural right to coddle the most vocally entitled minority.”

“Last time I checked, God was just one guy who was also three guys,” one Town Ward resident told Arthur. “Why should his three votes count any more than each one of our votes do?”

Another resident added that they felt this divine intervention was just “another instance of classic inter-ward meddling,” saying that “the mayor, the Pickleball Association, and now God are all part of a petty cabal seeking to undermine the sanctity of Town Ward and its residents.”

They were quick to disclaim that they were not opposed to the idea of more pickleball courts in the city, “just not in my ward, you feel me?”

“It does all seem a little Old Testament,” one Trent University undergrad told Arthur. “I mean, you’d just kind of think that a loving, benevolent God wouldn’t let the City spend millions of dollars on a park that’s fine the way it is instead of public transportation or affordable housing.”

However, plans obtained by Arthur indicate that the City’s newfound divine favour may have inspired it to increase the scope of the Bonnerworth Park Redevelopment. Tentative site plans show a number of pickleball courts planned for construction on Trent University campus, including in the Champlain college quad, Bata Library Podium, and City co-owned Cleantech Commons research and development park.

An internal City memo indicates that “the university has had it too good for so long,” and that Trent has “too much greenspace that they’re doing nothing with.”

The memo also cites the more than $12 million that the City has contributed to the Cleantech Commons project—more than twice the projected price tag of the Bonnerworth plan—as a debt which Trent is obliged to repay. “Considering Trent’s failure to secure any long term tenants for the site,” the memorandum continues, “the opportunity to use Cleantech Commons as a subsidized sports and recreation facility provides the City as far better possibility for return on investment.”

A Parks and Facilities report found that 80% of the dedicated green space on Trent’s Symons campus “serves no point besides looking nice,” and that converting the Lady Eaton College and Enwayaang lawns and Justin Chiu Stadium alone into pickleball courts could increase the City’s recreational and tournament capacity by more than 500%.

“Trent campus presents the potential to realize the Manifest Destiny that is the expansion of the sport of pickleball,” Leal’s letter continues. “Within four years it won’t just be senior citizens and Catholic high schoolers playing pickleball, it will be everyone. When pickleball inevitably becomes an Olympic sport, the City of Peterborough will be perfectly positioned to cultivate the requisite new talent for the games. Hell, maybe we could even host ‘em!”

“It does present a bit of a theological conundrum,” said a Trent University philosophy professor who was provided to Arthur by Trent Communications as a “Consulting Expert.” “Either God created us with free will, in which case it should stand that He has no right to intercede in municipal politics, or else free will does not exist, in which case calls for increased consultation on the Bonnerworth project were moot to begin with!”

Trent’s expert, who declined to be named in this article, added that the question of God’s existence “saddles this whole Bonnerworth affair with the veneer of a Pascal’s Wager, does it not?”

While he believes that presuming the existence of an omnipotent God who should be granted oversight of municipal decisions is “the City’s most measured option—eschatologically speaking,” this consultant is quick to add that “that such a course of action would probably still piss a lot of people off, even if those people are not responsible for the ultimate fate of anyone’s immortal soul.”

As of the time of publication of this article, God could not be reached by Arthur for comment.

“I’m just glad this whole thing doesn’t affect me,” the Trent professor concluded. “I live in Toronto.”