Skate park debate hits new delay

Deirdre Newman

Skating aficionados and bark park fans were poised to battle

Wednesday night for a coveted piece of land at TeWinkle Memorial

Park.

Skateboard park fans have had their eyes on the site since it was

listed as an alternative skateboard park location on the TeWinkle

Park Master Plan. The Costa Mesa Bark Park Foundation is also

salivating over the area east of Junipero Drive along Arlington

Avenue as another dog-friendly area.

The issue was tentatively scheduled for the Park and Recreation

Commission’s agenda, but in the end it was postponed when it turned

out that other parts of the TeWinkle Park Master Plan would be

discussed in August.

The recreation department would rather have the commission

consider more of the plan at the same time next month, said Mark

Taylor, management analyst with the city’s recreation division.

While the delay cost the foundation about $300 to give notice

through mailings, it was another domino in a series of delays and

setbacks that have undermined the collective psyche of the

skateboarding camp, said Jim Gray, who has been lobbying long for a

park in town.

“We’re dealing with a lot of young kids,” Gray said. “It’s tough

to tell them they have to keep fighting. That’s a sad statement.”

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

Park Master Plan, a road map for the future of the city’s most

heavily used park. But the commission continued a discussion on the

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

the Bark Park a chance to weigh in on the discussion.

The master plan originally proposed a 20,000-square-foot

skateboard park at Davis Elementary School. But installing it there

raised red flags among some commissioners, staff at Davis School and

Newport-Mesa Unified school board members, leading city staff to

consider removing it as an option, Steve Hayman, the city’s director

of administrative services, said last month.

As this location loses its luster, the skateboarders have shifted

their focus to TeWinkle.

Foundation officials say they are not opposed to a skateboard

park. They just don’t want it at this particular location, said Cathy

Mitchell, foundation chair, mainly because the skateboarders would be

sharing the parking lot being used by the bark park.

“We don’t have enough room for the patrons who come to our park,”

Mitchell said. “What if we had children on skateboards antagonizing

dogs on leashes? In essence, it’s not a very good idea.”

Mitchell said the foundation settled on the additional area after

a site they wanted in Fairview Park was rejected. It would like to

use the TeWinkle site in rotation with its area on Arlington Drive at

Newport Boulevard to allow the grass in both parks to recover.

Although most of the new area would have to be fenced off, they

would leave the neighborhood side as an open area, Mitchell said.

Gray said the skateboarding contingent is getting so frustrated

that some have suggested tying up the public comment sessions at City

Council and Park and Recreation Commission meetings.

“I think the mayor of Newport Beach once called us ‘the defiant

subculture,’ and we’re not,” Gray said, “But we’re feeling like

they’re forcing us to be this defiant subculture and clog up the

first hour of City Council meetings until someone starts making

something happen.”

Taylor said he has received a slew of e-mails from the camps for a

bark park addition and a skateboard park. The skateboarders should

rest assured that the two are not mutually exclusive, Taylor said.

“[The skateboarders] perceive that if we do put a dog park in,

there will never be a skateboard park, and that is definitely not the

case,” Taylor said. “They seem to be pitted against each other, and

that’s never been the case.”

Another idea, which surfaced two to three months ago, was to put

the park at Costa Mesa High School, although that would not be part

of the TeWinkle Park Master Plan, Hayman said in June. The school

district wants to consider the plan in more detail before a specific

site at the school is announced, she said.

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

574-4221 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.