Recreation Facility Partnership OKd

The Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners on Wednesday agreed to participate in an innovative partnership with a neighborhood group that would bring the city’s first public roller hockey rink to Studio City Recreation Center.

The $140,000 project, which also includes basketball, volleyball and handball courts as well as a baseball batting cage, will be financed partly by private donations and partly by money from Proposition K, the $776-million measure approved by voters last year to improve parks.

“We really sell it short by just calling it a roller rink,” said Kerry Engle, a spokesman for SCORE, the Studio City Organization for Recreational Enrichment, which has led the drive to build the facility. “It’s really a multipurpose recreational facility.”

A group of Studio City parents formed SCORE last year after park officials announced that parking and insurance issues were forcing them to close down a popular, makeshift roller hockey rink located in the parking lot. With no other rinks nearby, neighborhood children were left without a place to play.

Since it began pursuing its unusual partnership with the city, SCORE has raised almost $25,000 on its own and has received a $35,000 grant from the Amateur Athletic Foundation. Engle said the group is within $5,000 of its fund-raising goals.

“I think this is a great thing for the community,” Randy Kelly, the park’s recreation director, said of the public-private partnership. “If these people have the capability of going out and getting things done, they should be able to. It’s their park after all.”

Before the rink can be built, however, the city’s lawyers and SCORE must iron out details concerning liability, said Jan Zatorski, an analyst with the Department of Recreation and Parks.

Zatorski and Engle said they expected the liability issues to be resolved quickly. Construction could start in August, Engle said.