When we were losing the Ballard Bowl (V1), a bunch of us went and volunteered at the Ballard community clean-up day.  We grabbed hedge sheers, rakes, paint brushes, and got to work.  This immediately earned us respect from the non-skating members of the neighborhood who wanted to support us but were a little unsure.  It allowed people to see skaters as simply another part of their community, instead of this insular self-serving special interest group.  But most importantly, it allowed me to take my sheers over to where the Mayor was pruning, and really put him on the spot about what was going on with the skatepark situation.  I think he took me more seriously when I had a giant sharp implement in my hand!

Well here is a very similar opportunity for skaters to show the neighborhood that’s been so supportive and welcoming to them, that they are interested in contributing.  Volunteers are needed to help build the  playground at the Delridge Community Center. Funding depends on the  neighborhood being able to commit a certain number of people.

You should send an email by July 2nd to helpdelridgeplay@gmail.com if  you can help.

Friday, July 17th
6:30 am to 2:00 pm

No special skills are needed, except for an  ability to wake up early and take the day off work, possibly.

There will be edible gardening preparation,  painting, and other fun activities other than strictly building. Come bond  with your neighbors and help improve the area.

There will also be an art wall that they are hoping people will want to help paint.

Please show up and let Delridge know you’re down for more than just yourself.

According to advocates on the ground, Seattle Parks recently received a public disclosure request from someone in the community along with other NIMBY-type complaints, including the classic “older skaters have hijacked this process in order to build what they want at the expense of what the children need” and “the skatepark footprint encroaches on the surrounding park space”.  At this time, Parks staff have not given the SPAC any inkling of how they intend to respond, but we’ve been here before and it was ugly.

There will be a meeting on Wed July 1st 6:30-7:30 at Dahl Playfield to share the final design of the skatespot that will begin construction this summer.  My guess is that these last-minute opponents will be trying to hijack the meeting with their pointless arguments.

Let’s not forget that this kind of thing stalled Lower Woodland for a year, drained $80K from the park’s budget, and eventually got the park pushed back against the hill where we told them not to put it for various good reasons.  We can’t let this happen again.

Show up to this meeting and help Seattle Parks help you.

It’ll be interesting to see what Grindline brings to the table since we’re not sure how much money will be available when it comes time to build the park.  Usually designers use a budget number as a design anchor.  There have been rumors of asking the City Council to amend the recently passed parks levy to move the money from the Myrtle Reservoir park to Delridge.  Frankly, after meeting the people that live around that park, I’d prefer not to hang out there.

Show up to this meeting and make sure when the park gets built, you will want to skate it.

——-

NEWS RELEASE
Gregory J. Nickels, Mayor
Timothy Gallagher, Superintendent
www.seattle.gov/parks

For immediate release                                                   January 6, 2009

Contact:         Karen O’Connor  -  206-233-7929
Karen.o’connor@seattle.gov

PARKS TO HOLD SECOND PUBLIC MEETING
FOR DELRIDGE PLAYFIELD SKATEPARK

SeattleParksand Recreation will host the second of three public
meetings for a skatepark at Delridge Playfield on Wednesday, January 14,
2009from 6 – 8 p.m.at YoungstownCulturalArtsCenter.
YoungstownCulturalArtsCenteris located at 4408 Delridge Way SW,
SeattleWA98106. This meeting will discuss the scope of work for the
design of a skatepark at the Delridge Playfield.

The first meeting focused on prioritizing the best location for the
skatepark within the Delridge Playfield. The design consultant will
present proposed site plans and gather ideas from the community in the
second and third meeting.

In June 2006, a host of citizens and city departments, including
SeattleParksand Recreation, the Seattle Department of Transportation,
the Portof Seattleand the SeattleSchool District, nominated 130 sites
throughout the city for the Skatepark Advisory Council to analyze as
potential locations for skate facilities.  The Delridge Playfield was
selected as a park site because it met most of the selection criteria
and because it is already an active site.

For more information visit the web site:
www.seattle.gov/parks/maintenance/DelridgeSkatePark.htm or contact
Parks Project Manager Kelly Davidson at 206-684-0998 or
kelly.davidson@seattle.gov.

As reported yesterday on the West Seattle Blog, The Delridge skatepark funding is about to get cut out of the budget by the City Council.  As usual, this is a huge blow to skaters in West Seattle, and more potentially bad news for a user group that has seen it’s fair share of disappointments.

The city has a significant budget shortfall largely due to a 30% decrease in property taxes, and it’s looking hard for ways to make up for it.  In times like these, development and acquisitions are often the first things to get shafted, which in general makes sense.  I understand that times are tough, and some difficult decisions need to be made.  But let’s be honest… cutting funds for a free activity for people of all ages during a time when folks don’t have a lot of money to spend on entertainment, seems really short-sighted.

What pisses me off even more, is that skatepark advocates have worked hard to successfully direct a bunch of money into the Seattle Parks Department system, only to have Parks do nothing with it.

For instance, Lower Woodland skatepark was funded via heavy lobbying during the Ballard Bowl debacle, and from a grant that this skatepark advocate personally went to Olympia to ask for.  When the skatepark’s overall size was reduced by Parks in an effort to placate angry Greenlake neighbors, there was over $100K surplus in the skatepark budget on opening day.  Instead of putting in lights, water fountains, or (gasp) paving the path around the park instead of using that pea gravel that gets all over the skate surface, the money just sat unused for so long it has now been earmarked for some other purpose.

Another example is the “skate dot pot”.  This fund was given to the Parks Department by the City Council to build skatedots as outlined by the Citywide Skatepark Plan.  Despite persistent effort made by the SPAC to develop these skatedots, not a single dollar of this money has been spent on skate dots.  The only money that has been used from this fund was a small amount to kick-start the Delridge project, which now looks to be dead in the water.  The only skatedot project that seemed like it might get legs is at John and Summit, a manual pad that Parks mistakenly estimated would cost $10K, is now languishing behind a slow moving Parks effort for months and only seems to even have gotten this far because of constant prodding from skaters.  Every SPAC meeting in the last year has included some discussion with Parks staff about getting the skatedot process going and nothing has happened.

So really…where is the real inefficiency here?  Skaters have been successfully securing funds for Seattle skateparks for a few years now and we’ve built one park.  It’s disheartening to work so hard as an advocate, only to have a lack of action on the execution side toss those hard-earned resources to the wind.  Perhaps we should start taking a close look and find out who is responsible for sitting on large sums of money that were specifically given to them by the City Council to build skateable terrain in this city, only to have those funds squandered and the re-absorbed into some general fund for mowing lawns.  Meanwhile, skatepark projects on the other side of the city can’t get off the ground because of budget cuts?!?  If I was this ineffective at my job I’d be fired, and so would you.

On the positive side, the Parks Levy has passed, which has some funding for skateparks, but not enough for the parks listed in the levy.  The levy funds are really only seed money to be spread over the next 6 years.  The Delridge skatepark process has actually been moving forward nicely with relative Seattle Parks newcomer Kelly Davidson at the helm.  But Delridge is not included in the levy, and looks like it may fall out of funding for the next two years.  The projects in the Levy will also have to undergo the same process that we’ve already begun at Delridge, with great success and overwhelming community support.  In effect, this latest chain of events threatens to set West Seattle skatepark development back another three years, just when we were gaining a genuinely positive momentum that has yet-to-be-seen on a skatepark project in Seattle.

I know we’re living in tough financial times, and that this new development is largely due to factors that lie far outside of the Seattle city government and Parks Department’s ability to make things better.  But things have been so screwed up up to this point that there is no headroom in the system in case of emergency.  What bugs me is that with one hand we’re throwing skatepark money into the fire, and the other hand is begging for more.  I don’t blame anyone for not giving Seattle Parks more money for skateparks when they can’t even spend the bread they’ve been given thus far, especially when there’s a huge budget deficit.

I urge you to write an email to the City Council budget committee today, because time is short.  Explain to them that you feel like we’ve really achieved something special in West Seattle with the Delridge skatepark process, and the community can’t afford to lose this opportunity.  Tell them that we’re engaged in the process, we’ve gained momentum, and that the Parks Department is actually responding to us on this project.  Let’s not throw a wrench into the machine right when it finally seems like it’s working…

Send it to:

Tom Rasmussen

Richard McIver

CC:

Timothy Gallagher

The popular vote may not count when we’re selecting the next President, but in three weeks you’ll be able to vote yes/no on $1.5 million dollars for skateparks in the next 6 years.  This is a huge deal.  Tell your friends, browbeat your neighbors, and register your dead relatives.  Without this levy, we’re going to have a hard time raising money for any future skateparks for a long time.

Dear skaters and skatepark supporters,

The Pro-Parks levy, which has provided various park improvements and 150 new parks throughout Seattle, expires in November and finding money in these tough economic times to continue these park improvements will be difficult without an additional levy. Proposition 2, known as the Parks for All levy, can continue this important funding if passed during the November elections.  The levy has earmarked $1,450,000 specifically for skatepark and skatedot development.  There are no other assured funding opportunities for skateparks, especially of this magnitude.  Given the economic downturn, it is going to be very difficult for the SPAC to lobby additional funds for skateparks out of an already dwindling budget.  Prop 2 is the skaters best opportunity for ensuring more skateparks are built in the near future – period.

I am not saying that you should vote yes just for skateparks.  Rather, I urge to do some research and see what other benefits the levy provides.  In short, the levy would provide a total of $145 million over the course of the parks measure’s six-year life.  There is money for P-patches, sports fields, playgrounds and trails. There are forest and stream restorations, park developments on 66 acres of new reservoir lids and money for acquisitions of more land. There is attention to making the waterfront more publicly accessible. Almost $1 million would complete the remaining phases for the Children’s Play Garden at Colman Playground, designed from the start to offer full accessibility for kids with disabilities.

In summary the following potential skatepark projects (all of which were identified in the Citywide Skate Park Master Plan as priority projects for funding) are identified with total funding at $1,4500,000:

• Jefferson Park District Facility (up to 30,000 sf!)
• Myrtle Skatedot
• Judkins Skatespot
• Roxhill Skatespot

I think it is important to remember that during these tough economic times, the first reaction from city officials is to tighten the purse strings.  However, in this case your dollars will go to additional park space that is one of the only primary FREE recreational, healthy activities to do when you are trying to save money.

Please educate yourself on this important proposition and VOTE YES to provide funding for the broad ranging list of important projects and property acquisitions.

Ryan Barth
Chairperson, Seattle Parks and Recreation Skate Park Advisory Committee

Every Northwest skater knows how important the Orcas Island skatepark is to our culture.  Now it seems that the behavior of a few, and a lack of stewardship has led the local school district down the path of potentially closing the park.

The Orcas park, built by the early Grindline/Dreamland crew, stands as a monument to design/build creativity and skatepark design.  Legendary filmmaker Warren Miller got behind the project, and funded the majority of the construction through his foundation.  The community got behind it, and produced a true destination skatepark that draws skaters from all over the world to one of the most remote and beautiful skateboarding experiences on the planet.

But that remote “destination” quality also gave some skaters the impression they could relax when it comes to respecting the rules.  Helmets are required at Orcas, and several times throughout the years issues and controversy have erupted when skaters refused to comply.  Pro skate teams have always been averse to wearing helmets because some feel they make for lame photos, but two years ago a Seattle skater who was visiting actually disrespected Warren Miller with foul language when he was told by the park’s godfather to strap on a lid.

These types of issues are totally the exception, and most skateparks are self-policed and positive places.  But this is the type of crap that makes it hard for local advocates to get skateparks built in thier own communities.  Seattle skaters need to watch this episode carefully and step back a bit to consider how their behavior can have averse effects on the health of our community.

There are a few things you can do right now to help improve the situation at Orcas, and in your own local skatepark:

• Write a letter, email, or call the Orcas Island School Board and let them know that you are a skateboarder, and that you support them in taking measures to improve the environment at the park, but insist that closing the park is not the solution:

Orcas Island Schools
557 School Road
Eastsound, WA 98245

Administrative Office:
(360) 376-2284

Barbara Kline (Superintendent) bkline@orcas.k12.wa.us

David Mierau (Maintenance Dept. Facilities Director) dmierau@orcas.k12.wa.us

Scott Lancaster ihsscott@rockisland.com

• Take action when you witness behavior at a skatepark that could threaten the positive environment there.  Call BS on people who insist on bringing alcohol into the park.  It can be done in a way that’s respectful, just explain that you want to be able to keep skating there and that we want more parks to be built.  Take ownership of your park… your park will love you for it.
• Form a “Friends of” group for your skatepark.  The City of Seattle has a program that’s pretty easy to enroll in.

Hopefully this wake up call will only result in a heightened awareness of how our behavior in skateparks can either have a positive or negative affect on our ability to enjoy safe and accessible public skateparks.  We’re all ambassadors for skateboarding when we’re in public skateparks.  If you feel it, reach out.  If not, just don’t act like an idiot.

It’s no secret that the Citywide Skatepark Plan left the urban core out in the cold.  The lack of available public space, fear of public backlash in high-density neighborhoods, and some of the highest property values in the city all contributed to a lack of motivation when the Parks Department was assembling a list of possible sites for skateparks.  When the Citywide Skatepark Plan task force expressed their concern about this, we were told that this is where skatedots would come in…smaller individual features would fill the gaps in higher-density urban areas that could not support a larger skatespot or skatepark.

Parks acquired a lot at John and Summit back in January of 2007 as a part of the Pro-Parks Levy.  Since then, Seattle Parks has been working through the development process, and there have already been 3 public meetings during which the idea of implementing a skatedot had been suggested by locals.  Several skaters have been advocating for a skatedot at this site, including the staff, management, and clientele of the nearby skate-HQ, 35th North.

But a few months ago, the communication from Seattle Parks started to get …ummm… sketchy.  What started out as a seemingly supportive position sudddenly started to morph into the classic backpedaling that has happened in so many other sites when back-channel opposition starts to come in via email and phone calls from well connected people.  The message went from “we welcome the participation of the skateboarders in creating a potential skatedot”, to “we’re not sure if there’s enough public support for this feature”.

The local advocates then reached out to the SPAC, who started bridging communication between Parks and the advocates, and also contacted Grindline about possibly providing some pro-bono conceptual designs to help show concerned community members exactly what they should or should not be worried about.  Grindline graciously agreed to help, but have been hitting snags because both Parks and Mithun (the contractor signed up to design the park) have been saying they don’t want to move forward until they know the skatedot will for sure be a part of the project.

What’s really unclear, is what stage the project is in.  Parks project manager Lynn Sullivan had previously told advocates that it was unclear whether or not the skatedot had enough support in the community, so a petitioning process was started (you can still sign it at 35th N).  Today in an email, she is now suggesting that skaters focus their efforts on working through a small team of representatives at the next public meeting, which is scheduled for Wednesday, September 10,
from 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. at the Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church
(1729 Harvard Ave).  The idea, according to Sullivan, is not to spook the concerned neighbors who are opposed to the skatedot with a large number of bloodthirsty skateboarders at the meeting.  But the issues appear to be noise concerns and potential for pedestrian/skater conflicts, two issues that can easily be mitigated through design and basic park closure enforcement.  Neither issue is necessarily contentious or controversial.

I have an email in to Parks asking for clarification on whether or not this project is officially green-lit, or if it’s still pending some sort of assessment of community approval.  Once again, it seems like Parks is trying to do the right thing by managing negative reactionary blowback, but in the process they are playing a coy game of politics that breeds distrust from all parties involved.  It seems like transparency and the open sharing of information would not only help move these projects along, but it would allow for more opportunities for the pro and anti-skate folks to demystify their positions and educate one another.

Regardless of the snags in the process, it really can’t hurt to err on the safe side, so please shoot an email to lynn.sullivan@seattle.gov and let her know you support a skatedot in this park.  This much-needed skatedot is at a critical juncture in the public process.  As I get more updates on the status of the project, I’ll post them here.

Skate Like a Girl, an organization that promotes and encourages young women to discover the joy of skateboarding, is looking for your stories, photos, and video:

——-

Hey SLAGsters-

We need your help! We have a great opportunity to get a mini documentary about SLAG produced by Reel Grrls, and we need to have footage and photos of gals of all ages skateboarding and having fun from SLAG 2000 to today, or your own personal skate history. If you have photos or footage, please email us and let us know. You can email us the actual footage or links, you could also send it via the post office or meet up with us.

If you are free the week of March 6-9th and would like to come out tell us about your own SLAG stories, please email by March 2nd.

Hope all is well.

Thanks!

–
Fleur Larsen and Nancy Chang
Skate Like a Girl Co-Directors
skatelikeagirl.com <http://skatelikeagirl.com>
(360)790-4293
617 20th ave E
Seattle Wa 98112

Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008 from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m @ Northgate Community Center:

Northgate Urban Center Park Redevelopment –

Parks Dept says: “At this meeting, the community can participate in creating a vision for the transformation of the 3.73 acres of mostly asphalt property to a new green urban park. Now a King County Park and Ride facility, the future park is located at the intersection of 5th Avenue NE and NE 112th Street.”

SSdotO: This project has been in the works for a long time. There is a Project Advisory Team already assembled, and it has a skateboarder representative on it. The downside is that the Northgate meetings for the City-wide skatepark plan were the most contentious, with people like Kris Fuller walking around writing “Skateboarders take and deal drugs” on the comment boards.

———–

Monday, Feb. 25, 2008 from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m @ Park Board Room, Denny Park, 100 Dexter Ave N:

Pro Parks Levy Oversight Committee -

Parks Dept says: “As part of his 2008 proposed budget, Mayor Greg Nickels will infuse Seattle neighborhoods with a one-time $7 million “Orphaned Parks Wish Fund.” If adopted by the City Council, this would be one of the largest funds of its kind in the city’s history. Every neighborhood will be eligible for funding to improve its parks.”

SSdotO: We reported on the announcement of this fund back in October, and it’s pretty huge. Sure, we’ve got a citywide skatepark plan, but there is no funding for any of it. We can’t skate a plan. It’s important that the Pro Parks Levy Oversight Committee hears about how they totally screwed up when they passed a 198.2 million dollar levy with absolutely zero-point-zero dollars earmarked for skateparks. It’s time to correct that oversight and make it right by directing some of this orphaned park money to skatepark development.

Seattle Parks is having it’s second meeting for the Myrtle Reservoir project. This project already has funding, and is slated for an 11,000 square foot skatespot.

At the last meeting, several neighbors who live directly adjacent to the park came out strongly against the skate feature, claiming that skateboarders were “criminals”, and “degenerate”. Instead, they said, put it at High Point, where there’s already a lot of “noise”.

Doctor John Carr, while researching this project for his thesis, discovered that these neighbors were using skateboarders as proxies for their fears about…well…everything. He discovered that they had sent emails to the Parks Department that in effect, suggested that the criminal activity that “usually occurs in skateparks” would be a better fit in the High Point neighborhood, where there is “already a lot of crime”. Even in considering the valid concerns like noise and increased activity, both assertions about crime and who skateboarders are, are problematic.

From our interview with John last week:

What was so interesting, is at the same time they framed their objections to all the “noise” and “crime” that skaters would bring to their neighborhood, they often compared it to all the “noise and crime” from the black neighborhood. They would then say, “well, if you have to have a skatepark, put it across the street in the black neighborhood” either because it is already such a problem area, or because there is already a huge police presence there, or because the black neighborhood isn’t a “residential” area. The problem though, is the City has statistics showing that the black neighborhood is both a residential area and has crime levels on par with the rest of the area and the rest of the city. So, by saying “we don’t want the skatepark because it will bring the kind of noise and crime that happens in the black neighborhood” these white neighbors were really saying “keep the black kids out of our neighborhood.” But because they framed their objections in terms of who skaters are, rather than who African-American kids are, they got away with it. The City left the spot in the white neighborhood off the list of identified sites, and they have begun re-developing the park without a skate facility. Without the discursive proxy of the skater to code the neighbors’ requests, they couldn’t have gotten away with that type of claim in Seattle.

Here are quotes from some of the emails we got from Parks through public disclosure:

We strongly feel that a skateboard park in our residential neighborhood would bring more negative issues than positive. The increased activity for potential gang crime, a general hang-out for unsupervised youth, and increased traffic and noise is not something we feel should be introduced to our neighborhood. … just across the street there is a much more established and controlled facility already in existence at the High Point Playfield. .. the police are already patrolling [that] area for the not-so well-intentioned.

We purchased a home in this neighborhood due to the quiet and safe atmosphere it provided. Since acquiring our home, we have enjoyed the tranquil city views and green space the Myrtle Street Reservoir has offered. . . .A 10-30,000 square foot skate park does not belong adjacent to or in the middle of our neighborhood. The crime, drugs, traffic, noise, etc. that arrives with the skate park does not belong here and simply is not welcome.

My husband and I have lived near the Myrtle reservoir and water tower for several years. We purchased our house in this area because it is a quiet mature neighborhood. Yes there are children and we eventually plan to have children, but it is not a suburban cul-de-sac environment…. I am not against skate parks, children should be able to have recreation. I am, however, against putting theses parks in established neighborhoods. Highpoint seems to be much better suited as a location for a new skate park…. We have endured the noise and intrusion of the Myrtle Street reservoir construction, now you are asking us to put up noise, mess, crime, traffic, etc. for the rest of our lives! In addition to the inconvenience, this will also lower our home values.

As you can see, woven amongst the valid concerns there are reflections of bias in these emails that are not only unfair, they raise serious social justice issues about class, race, and the rights of everyone to have equal access to public recreational spaces.

Show up tomorrow and let the Parks Department know that not only are skateparks good for the community, but that the users of skateparks are merely a reflection of the community they live in. Also, come prepared to be a good ambassador for skateboarders. Let’s show these neighbors that this is about the kids in the Myrtle Neighborhood having a positive, active place to play that they can be proud of, and that no one wants to see an unsuccessful crime-filled park of any type.

Be there: Tuesday, January 22, from 7-9pm @ High Point Community Center.