Citywide Skatepark Plan: ADOPTED
Last week the P.E.L.L. Committee came through for skateboarders, and this week the City-wide Skatepark Plan, otherwise known as Resolution 30984, was adopted by the full City Council in today’s meeting. This chapter is complete folks!
Massive gratitude from all of Seattle’s skateboarders goes out to the entire City Council, but especially to David Della, Richard Conlin, and Jan Drago who have all been persistent champions of doing the right thing when it comes to skateparks.
Back when we were fighting to preserve the Ballard Bowl, Council-members Della, Drago, and Conlin attended our events and spoke publicly about the value of skateparks in our communities. This was almost 4 years ago. Today they passed a resolution that asks the Mayor and the Seattle Parks Department to support, fund, and build future skateparks for many years to come.
As slow as they’ve been (and frankly sometimes they’ve been downright obtuse) about building skateparks, the Parks Department actually deserves some credit for staffing the Task Force that created the Skatepark Plan. Susanne Friedman from the Parks Department deserves special credit for working very hard on the plan and going to bat for skateparks when it was not always the popular or politically correct thing to do within Seattle Government.
Working alongside her was Laura Weigel from Arai-Jackson-Murakami, who from this volunteer’s view did most of the heavy lifting required to put the plan together and present it on paper. The methodology, data collection, and basically the “storytelling” that binds all of this data into a solid case for building skateparks all came from Laura.
The all-volunteer task force that was assembled by the Parks Department and the City Council was almost entirely made up of people who would never stand on a skateboard. It included representatives from Seattle Department of Transportation, the Port of Seattle, the original Pro-Parks Levy team, plain-old concerned citizens, a Garfield High School student, and even a former skatepark opponent. Everyone worked together to make this plan a reality in a rare case of the “Seattle Process” producing something positive.
Finally, the skateboarders of Seattle deserve a special pat on the back for enduring the long and disheartening process that we’ve all had to endure, simply so that we can enjoy a healthy activity in a place that’s safe and within a reasonable distance from our homes. With Ballard reduced to less-than-half it’s original size and SeaSk8 being torn down without a suitable replacement built in it’s place, Seattle skaters are still waiting for results many years later.
Let’s hope the passing of the Skatepark Plan, and the official acknowledgement by the City Council that skateboarding is an important activity that needs to be supported by public funds and process, is a turning point in this long and arduous history of much too little, way too late.
