Residents not stoked on skate park site

Andrew Glazer

COSTA MESA -- A growing number of people are fighting the city’s plans to

construct a skate park at Charle and Hamilton streets, believing other

sites would be much better.

“We won’t stop until the bulldozers start digging there,” said Mike

Scheafer, a parks commissioner who helped form Citizens for a Quality

Skate Park.

But council members maintain that the site is safe and are encouraging

residents to wait until specific plans are drawn up before dismissing it

altogether.

Scheafer said the group’s more than 85 members believe the Charle Street

spot, which the City Council approved in November, would be unsafe for

young skaters.

He also said there wouldn’t be enough parking near the park, making it

nearly impossible for parents to watch their children ollie, kick-flip

and grind the rails there.

“If a kid gets hurt, there’s nowhere for them to go,” Scheafer said. “I

wouldn’t take my son there.”

Eric Schirmer, who also is opposed to the Charle Street location, said he

wouldn’t let his children skate there, either.

“Why wouldn’t they build it at a place we could come watch our children?”

he asked. “Parents can watch basketball. They can watch baseball. Why

can’t they watch skating?”

The council recognized the need for a skate park eight years ago, but has

since struggled to find an appropriate location.

Last year, it approved constructing the skate park at Lions Park, but

later was convinced by residents living nearby to find another location.

They said replacing 10,000 square feet of the park’s grass, which absorbs

rain water, with the paved skate park would increase the likelihood of

flooding in the neighborhood.

The city has nearly $250,000 set aside for the project, which is

scheduled to break ground in the fall.

Scheafer said Lions Park or TeWinkle Park would be ideal locations for a

skate park. He said those parks attract more people with other sports

fields, making them safer than Charle Street, which has no other

facilities.

TeWinkle and Lions parks also have restrooms and parking lots. The Charle

Street site does not. Scheafer said building restrooms and parking lots

there would cost the city an additional $150,000.

But Councilwoman Libby Cowan defended the Charle and Hamilton spot. She

said it would bring a viable recreational facility to a neighborhood

starved of places for children to play. And Cowan said the Charle and

Hamilton site is far from being isolated.

“It’s near a bus line and fast food outlets, where all the kids will go,”

Cowan said Tuesday. “And it’s a block away from Harbor Boulevard. There’s

nothing isolated about it.”

Cowan said she wanted to make it clear that having the skate park built

as soon as possible was a council priority. She said the city began

holding public hearings and exploring possible locations as soon as state

legislation passed in 1998 that made it easier for cities to open skate

parks by reducing their liability.

“It seemed very defensive of her to say that,” Scheafer said. “I never

accused the council of sitting on the project. I accused them of

listening to a small faction of people living around Lions Park.”

The city is scheduled to unveil a concrete plan for the skate park and

begin meeting with Charle Street neighbors in late March.