OJAI : Skateboard Ramps Donated for Park

A Goleta skateboard manufacturer has donated thousands of dollars worth of ramps to Ojai, moving the small town one step closer to the construction of a skateboard park.

Craig Walker, an Ojai parks and recreation commissioner, said Powell Skateboards decided last week to donate the majority of its ramp equipment from the Powell Skate Zone in Goleta to Ojai. The corporation is shutting down its 24,000-square-foot indoor skateboarding park because it was losing too much money, owner George Powell said.

“The majority of it they’ve offered to us, which is really an expensive and a very generous gift, probably worth $30,000,” Walker said.

But, he added, the city can only accept some of that equipment because of storage and moving difficulties.

Walker said Powell Skateboards thought of donating the ramp equipment after reading in recent weeks about Ojai officials approving a skateboard facility in concept. The collection of ramps, half-ramps and other wooden, Masonite-surfaced shapes probably adds up to 8,000 or 9,000 square feet of skating area, he said. Ojai will only take a portion of that equipment.

Walker said the donation will save thousands of dollars toward construction of a skateboard park.

In the meantime, Ojai’s task force of local skaters and city, school and police officials will investigate the best way to use the ramps.

Ideas for the equipment so far include using the equipment as is, or covering it with a more durable steel or cement surface, Walker said.

“However we decide, having these ramps is just going to further us along” in our proposal to the City Council, he said. The Council has said that outside funds or grant money must be found for the construction of a facility, if one is approved.

At the first task force meeting on Thursday evening, Walker said, teen-age skateboarders were asked which ramps they would like the city to acquire.