Community Services Manager David Hart gave the council what he called a refresher on why the skate park is being changed into a multi-use facility. He spoke during the Department Head Reports to the Tuesday, Nov. 5, City Council meeting.
The council discussed the issue Tuesday night. The council took no formal action but the project is apparently going forward.
The proposal has come up before and included a potential archery range on the site, according to one of the slides that Hart showed the council.
At the Oct. 22 council meeting, Daniel Felts said the city should preserve the skate park instead of removing it. At that same meeting, Jessica Romero agreed with Felts. “I have been out there with my drill and my screws drilling stuff down so it’s safer for my child, but it would be detrimental to my children’s future to remove the skate park and replace it,” Romero said.
She volunteered to help.
During this week’s council meeting, Hart said: “Maintenance has been really tough there, with graffiti, the continual damage of the equipment, broken bottles, and the many hours it takes to keep that up.”
He said the skate park has become a place for delinquent behavior. He said the school has increased its youth programs. According to Hart, the city has lost a lot of recreational opportunities at the school.
According to Hart, the city would be losing that space in a year and a half because of Island Company plans for the property.
According to Hart, it would be a better investment for the limited time that the city has the space to conduct multi-use programing for youth and adults.
“It’ll ease the congestion that we already have at JMF,” he said. Hart was apparently referring to Joe Machado Field.
He said they have a large contingency of players who play football.
“Again it’s about the best use of space for the greater community in a limited space,” he said.
He said the city could provide sports like basketball and soccer. He said Avalon could have volleyball and pickleball. “We can do community days with roller skating and roller blading nights,” he said.
According to Hart the city had 115 kids in youth programs up to eighth grade. He said those numbers represented over one-third of the student body at the school.
“We believe we can have more of a pocket skate park in that area with some of the pieces that we have that are still usable and salvageable,” he said.
He said the city could salvage almost half the equipment in the skate park.
He showed a slide of comparable parks in Lincoln Park in Long Beach and in Queens, New York.
According to Hart, Avalon could do something along the lines of the Long Beach park.
Councilmember Mary Schickling said: “Is there an urgency to this?”
“Yes,” Hart said.
“We have programs coming up like the basketball program where we will have no space for those kids to practice in because we will not have access to the gym,” Hart said.
“What about the ones downtown?” Schickling asked.
According to Hart, the space is too small for the number of kids that they have. She asked about the basketball hoops outside the school.
Hart said those weren’t available right now because of all the construction that is going on.
“OK, gotcha,” she said.
“I’m just kind of curious as to why don’t we want to hear more from the community about it,” Schickling said.
She said there seemed to be a lot of engagement on social media about this issue.
She suggested having an agenda item about it.
Councilmember Lisa Lavelle said she asked about these questions last week. She said the explanation about losing space at the school and Joe Machado Field made her understand that the need is now.
“I was glad to see that we could do a pocket park,” she said.
She said she was glad that it would be a place that could be used and that it would be safe. “Right now it feels like some of that equipment is starting to get to the place where it’s not safe, both due to heavier equipment that’s being used on it and just due to age and the elements outside,” Lavelle said.
She said the hard part was because it’s temporary because of the construction that’s going to take place in a year and a half.
Lavelle said she generally likes for public projects to go before the public, but because time is of the essence she thought she was OK with moving forward.
Lavelle said she thought down the road there would be the goal of having a larger space.
Councilmember Michael Ponce said: “I think that Dave has worked well in coming up with a good compromise of basketball court, volleyball court, and still keeping part of the skate part.”
He thought it was a really good a compromise.
Schickling said she was happy with him putting the pocket park in there.
“I think it’s a really great compromise,” she said.
“I understand all of the situation, the circumstances and everything, and I’m really happy to hear and see that you listened to public feedback in a different form and incorporated it into the plans,” she said.
