Skate park friends nervous about TeWinkle delay

Deirdre Newman

The patience of skate park supporters is wearing as thin as a frayed

piece of grip tape after another delay of plans for TeWinkle Park.

On June 9, the Planning Commission approved parts of the TeWinkle

Park Master Plan. But the commission continued a discussion on the

skateboard park for a variety of reasons, including giving fans of

the Bark Park, who covet another site close to the dog-friendly area,

a chance to weigh in on the discussion.

Skateboard park fans, who have been pressing for a park for about

10 years, expressed frustration at the delay.

“We’ve been playing this location game forever,” said Jim Gray,

the leader of the skate park advocates. “It’s getting ridiculous. I

think these planning commissioners need to go to a skate park and see

how they work and where they are. They haven’t ruined any

neighborhoods, as far as I know.”

The commission first considered the master plan at its April 14

meeting. At that time, commission members requested more information

and continued the discussion to June 9. The plan is a road map to

help guide the future of the city’s most heavily used park.

The plan proposes a 20,000-square-foot skateboard park at Davis

Elementary School. But to install it there would require eliminating

the track area, which has raised red flags among some commissioners.

“I 100% support a skateboard park in our community, but don’t

think we should be eliminating actively used recreational areas,”

Commissioner Katrina Foley said. “There’s lot of areas that are not

actively used areas.”

Some of the staff at Davis School and some Newport-Mesa Unified

school board members also have expressed reservations about the site,

which is leading city staff to consider removing it as an option,

said Steve Hayman, the city’s director of administrative services.

“We haven’t completely written it off, but it is beginning to get

more remote,” Hayman said.

Another site being considered as part of the master plan would

place the skateboard park east of Junipero Drive along Arlington

Avenue. But Bark Park users have been eyeing that swath and haven’t

had a chance to voice their opinion to the Parks and Recreation

Commission yet, Planning Chair Bruce Garlich said. So the Planning

Commission sent that item back to the parks commissioners for their

recommendation.

Another idea -- to put the park at Costa Mesa High School --

surfaced two to three months ago, although that would not be part of

the TeWinkle Park Master Plan, Hayman said.

The school district wants to consider the plan in more detail

before a specific site at the school is announced, Hayman added.

Last November, the parks commissioners endorsed a recreation

master plan that listed a skate park as the No. 1 recreational need

in the city. They also created a Skateboard Park Planning Team to

conduct more research. Both moves heartened skateboard park hopefuls.

That’s why the Planning Commission’s latest move was especially

disheartening, Gray said.

“It went through the whole recreational master plan process, and

now it seems like it’s not really a priority,” Gray said. “It may be

a priority to the kids on the street, but not the city, because they

could have done something a lot faster.”

Commissioners reiterated that they still consider a skateboard

park in or around TeWinkle Park to be a priority.

“It’s still on the master plan, we’ve just continued it so we can

get the best place for it,” Planning Commissioner Joel Faris said.

In addition to postponing a decision on the skate park, the

commission also continued action on a community center that would

cater to teens, which is being considered in tandem with the

skateboard park, and on a half-court basketball court. It recommended

eliminating a pedestrian bridge over Junipero Drive and removing one

of three proposed tot lots.

Once the entire master plan is approved by the City Council,

individual items will not come back for more public discussion.

The date when the Planning Commission will reconsider the

skateboard park, bark park, community center and basketball court has

not been determined yet.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa and may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at [email protected].