Santa Clarita Considers Skateboard Park Issue

SANTA CLARITA â€”  The City Council debated Tuesday night whether to build a public skating park at the MetroLink station on Soledad Canyon Road to give roller-bladers and skateboarders an alternative to streets, parking lots and shopping malls.

Central to the debate was whether the park should be free or include an admission charge.

City Recreation Coordinator Johnathan Skinner was instructed to gather more information.

“I think we should build a cheap, free, 20th century skateboard park to keep faith with the youth of the city,� Councilman Carl Boyer said.

“I think we should handle this like any other facility in Santa Clarita and charge a fee,� Councilwoman Jan Heidt responded.

Several council members have been supportive of the idea since it was proposed to them last May, and the council has already obtained a $32,811 grant from the county government for the park.

Skinner said cost of the park is estimated between $60,000 and $300,000, with public funds expected to pay part of the project but private donations covering most of the cost. “We’re going to tell the skaters, ‘This is what it costs, now go out and raise the money,’ � he said.

Skinner said the MetroLink station was picked from 22 potential sites because it was centrally located, security officers are already on site and the skaters would have little effect on nearby businesses and residents.

The Sheriff’s Department says that while skaters are not a major problem in the area, complaints have been received from motorists who say they nearly ran down skaters who emerged from between cars in parking lots, or that skaters grabbed onto moving cars to hitch a ride.

Deputy Tim Peters, who lives in Santa Clarita, said he hopes the park is built to give young people something to do.

“I know it’s considered a lot of money by some people,� Peters said. “But you’ll see a return on that money in our youth.�

Skaters say without a park, they have nowhere to go. “I’ve been kicked out of every shopping center in the area within the last three weeks,� said Craig Glover, who calls himself the “chairman of the boards� of local skaters.

“We need a place to go. We’re not criminals. They wouldn’t take a bat out of a great baseball player’s hands, why take the skateboard out of the [skater’s]?� he said recently.

They can’t skate in school playgrounds, he said, because “security guards are always bouncing us out of there.�

Glover wants the park to include “bowls, fun boxes and quarter-pipes�--cement pits and ramps that skaters careen down to perform maneuvers.

The city studied eight public skateboard parks to see how the successful ones were run, including a park at Huntington Beach High School. Skinner said they are usually non-staffed, involve the skaters in the decision-making and are built in well-populated areas.

“The successful parks allow people to come and go when they want to, and the city or agency works directly with the skaters, from designing the park to having them help clean up any graffiti,� he said.