3 Mini-Parks Proposed for Skateboarders

At long last the city may have hatched a plan that will please curb-grinding skateboard stuntmen and safety-conscious pedestrians alike.

Rather than waiting to find a site for a single citywide skateboard park, the City Council tonight will consider building three mini-parks in existing parks. If the scaled-down plan is approved, staff members will then recommend which parks would be best suited for the ramps and platforms skateboarders spin off.

Each site would be about the size of the small park located at California and Santa Clara streets--known in skateboarding circles as “California 66,” because it is next to the restaurant of that name.

The newest proposal would resolve the problems of finding space and adequate restroom facilities that have plagued earlier plans. If approved, it could also get the curbs and ramps installed within just a few months, said Ron Calkins, director of public works.

The council will also vote on whether to keep searching for a site for a larger, 10,000- to 14,000-square-foot citywide skateboard facility to be built in the future--perhaps on state beachfront property, or a new service area park planned for east Ventura.

“Bravo to this recommendation,” Councilman Jim Friedman said after reviewing the report. “I like it. I think it’s a way of rewarding kids all over the city for their patience.”

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Local skateboarders also endorsed the plan--with a few reservations.

“I think that’d be good,” 14-year-old Donovan Elliott said of the new proposal. But he worries the mini-parks may be “way small.” He said that if the mini-parks are no larger than “California 66” there will only be room for two to three people.

“You need speed. And to not get in people’s way. We’ll get hurt if there’s too many people in a small place.”

Aaron Powell, also 14, likes the idea because it gives skateboarders all over the city a place to go. “If you build one big park there will be a million people there,” Aaron said. “But if you have one in east Ventura, one in the middle, in the west, people can go to different places.”

Councilman Ray Di Guilio, the father of a skateboarder, says he supports the proposal, but sees it only as an interim solution. He worries the mini-parks will not be sufficiently challenging for advanced skateboarders.

“Just because we put three curbs in one park and a little ramp in another does not mean we have solved this problem,” he said. He will continue to push hard for a high-end citywide park, with more sophisticated pyramids and fun boxes.

When the city banned skateboarding in downtown last summer they promised local skateboarders they would find them a place to kick-flip and olly--or slide down a handrail--in peace. The city has set aside $350,000 for a citywide skateboard park for the purpose. Of that, $100,000 would be used for the mini-parks. The remainder would be reserved for a larger facility.

But to the frustration of the skateboarders, the city has proposed, then nixed site after site. Mission Park. Promenade Park. Each was latched onto with enthusiasm, then discarded as unworkable. The latest, Cemetery Park, was deemed inappropriate because the city found that the plot’s shifting soil is too unstable to support construction.

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Meanwhile, city merchants and mall proprietors have taken an increasingly strong stance against skateboarders, who leave rubber marks across their curbs, wear down cement corners and sometimes frighten customers. The council passed six ordinances forbidding the sidewalk-skimming daredevils to use parking lots and pedestrian walkways around the city.

The skateboarders feel persecuted. They are chased off the cement wherever they go. Donovan says everywhere he goes with his friends he is asked to leave. Sometimes he is chased from as many as five spots a day.

“We could be doing drugs, or in a gang. But we choose to skateboard,” Aaron said. “We need a place to skate.”

But Friedman, who has been hit in the Achilles tendon by an unmanned, airborne skateboard, says there are legitimate safety concerns.

“It’s not that anyone is against skateboarding, or wants to be mean to skateboarders,” Friedman said. “But when a flying skateboard could knock someone upside the head . . . it’s a public safety issue.”

Radical skateboarders are holding out for a private indoor facility known as Skatecity, which is supposed to open in January. The young entrepreneurs building the east Ventura facility have said they will probably charge $10 a day. Although the city has looked at possibly subsidizing local skateboarders during certain hours, it could price beginners, or the less well-off, out of the market. Skateboarders feel the city should not rely on the private facility as a public solution.

“They’ve built all this stuff for everyone else--soccer fields, baseball fields,” says Aaron, who plans to attend the tonight’s council meeting with Donovan. “We need somewhere to go too.”