BATON ROUGE - A group of pickleball players reached out to 2 On Your Side when their concerns with a BREC gym weren't being addressed in a timely manner.

Lisa Burnett has been playing the sport for a year and enjoys the game.

"Thank God for pickleball," she said.

The group meets at the Antioch Recreation Center several times a week to play. There were two dozen people playing pickleball on Thursday. 

"There probably would have been more people had it not been so hot in here," she said.

Burnett called 2 On Your Side on Tuesday when it was too hot inside the gym to play. Two days after WBRZ reached out to BREC, there were large fans blowing air.

"Fans! Suddenly they appear after how many months we've been in here," said Burnett.

The gym has also been deep-cleaned. A large air vent has been restored and is now dust-free, the floors were vacuumed and mopped.

BREC says it has been waiting several weeks for parts to repair the air conditioner at Antioch. The parts came in on Wednesday and a crew made repairs on Thursday. While BREC says the A/C has been repaired and is working, the pickleball players got a different story from the contractor on site after it had been struck by lightning.

"It can operate but only on half capacity," said Burnett.

There are other pickleball courts maintained by BREC. The Baker facility's A/C is also inoperable after it caught fire. Parts for repairs have been ordered. There is a fee to play pickleball at some other BREC facilities. BREC says it is to sustain the quality of pickleball operations. There's no charge at Antioch.

"Nobody needs to pay more taxes for this because they have not been taking care of things, not only here," said Burnett.

BREC had a meeting Thursday regarding whether or not to collect the increase in property tax revenue in a reassessment year. BREC rolled back the voter-approved tax rates in 2020 and chose to roll it forward and without voter approval.

"They just need to keep up with the facilities that they have," said Burnett.

The pickleball players at Antioch say they're concerned more funding won't necessarily provide better results. There's a light out in the gym but BREC says it will not change the gym bulbs until three lights are out due to "limited use of the equipment required to get to the lights."