Plan for Ventura Skateboard Park Gets Rolling : Recreation: Teens, parents and planners brainstorm on feasibility and location of a site devoted to the sport. Mission Park is an early favorite.

With skateboards in tow, about 20 local teen-agers sat down with planners at City Hall on Saturday morning to offer their ideas for a city-funded skateboarding park.

For years, local youths say, they have been hassled, even ticketed, for skateboarding in public areas. Now they are pushing for a skateboarding park--complete with ramps, rails and other props--to give them a legal place to play.

“They’ve been writing us tickets for 10 years,” said 20-year-old Chris Long of Ventura. “It’s getting old.”

Several other California cities have built skate parks, including Huntington Beach, Palo Alto and Santa Cruz. Building such a park in Ventura is expected to cost $80,000 to $130,000.

The city has hired an architect to undertake a $10,000 feasibility study for the park. Saturday’s meeting, the first of several scheduled in coming weeks, was aimed at giving the designer some direction by soliciting public input about the feasibility, location and construction of a site.

The first order of business for the 30 parents, skaters and city planners who attended Saturday’s session was to determine the need for such a park--a consensus that took just minutes to reach.

“There really is no place they can go and not get thrown out of,” said Ventura Police Officer Terri Vujea.

Vujea and Long estimated that 50 to 100 Ventura youths would use the park, along with teen-agers from other cities who would be lured to Ventura.

Ojai resident Craig Walker, a leading proponent of a skate park there, said youths have been unfairly cast as miscreants and need a place to practice their sport.

“I think there is a need to lift skating out of the realm of an outlaw sport,” Walker said. “Make it legitimate.

“Even if you throw a little ramp into a parking lot,” Walker said, “kids will come.”

Proponents were also quick to identify a location. Eight sites were suggested, but one was unanimously targeted by parents and skaters: Mission Park in downtown Ventura.

Across from the San Buenaventura Mission, the park is within walking distance of eateries and restrooms, can be reached by bus and would complement steps already taken by the city to attract visitors to the recently refurbished downtown, proponents said.

Architect Stephan Rose of Fullerton in Orange County said the city will hold another meeting in about two weeks to further discuss locations, including Mission Park, and will then conduct site studies. The date of that meeting has not been set.

A skate park proposal is expected to reach the Planning Commission and City Council late next month.

While proponents of a park were quick to agree on the need and possible location for such a site, they disagreed on who should be allowed to use it and how elaborate it should be.

Teen-age skaters said the park should be restricted to skateboarding. But parents and a trio of City Council candidates said the park should be open to in-line skaters, or Rollerbladers, as well.

“I think it should be open for all skaters,” said Sandra Rooke of Silver Strand, whose sons, Dillon, 8, and Evan, 4, participated in the meeting at City Hall.

Some suggested building a pro shop, a concession stand, spectator areas and restrooms. But the kids said none of that was really necessary--just a place to skate without merchants or police harping at them.

Downtown business owners have complained that teen-agers have torn up public areas by scraping their skateboards over park benches, stairways and sidewalks. Skating was recently banned in the new $800,000 California Plaza because skaters were causing irreparable damage to the new stairs and sidewalks.

Skateboarders contend that if the city provided them with a place to skate, they would stay out of public areas.

“I think ultimately the city should cater to the needs of the skaters,” Long said. “I know there’s a lot of politics involved in it and all, but it’s important.”