A committee of skateboarding enthusiasts and other city residents will assess the prospects of putting more skateboarding features in the city’s parks and other properties, the Encinitas City Council unanimously decided Wednesday.
“I think this is where we need to go,” Councilmember Jim O’Hara said, later adding, “I don’t think we’re just thinking about parks.”
He said the future committee members should “be creative” and consider nonpark locations for bowls and other skate features.
Three Encinitas city parks currently have skateboarding facilities. The city’s main skate park is in Encinitas Community Park, just west of Interstate 5. Referred to as “Poods Park” by its users, it appears on at least one online list of “best skateparks” in the U.S., in part because of the world-class skateboarders who frequent it.
There are also smaller skateboarding features at Olympus Park and Leucadia Oaks Park. And, the privately run Magdalena Ecke Family YMCA operates what it bills as “one of the largest and most dynamic” skate parks in San Diego County just east of Interstate 5 on Saxony Road. It’s known as the place where Olympian Shawn White learned to skate and Team USA skater Bryce Wettstein donated a 10-foot size half-pipe.
The concept of starting a city skateboarding facilities assessment committee was first suggested in early April when Councilmember Luke Shaffer placed an item on the council’s agenda seeking to add a skate bowl feature to Cardiff’s Glen Park.
Shaffer put forward his idea after speaking with three men who’ve been campaigning for several years to put a bowl at Moonlight Beach. That beach proposal has faced challenges, and its backers have suggested that Glen Park might be an acceptable alternative because it, like Moonlight Beach, has a beautiful ocean view and that would provide a good backdrop for high-profile skating events.
However, the Glen Park proposal has faced intense opposition from people who live nearby. They say it is completely inappropriate for the park, which is tucked into a little valley on Orinda Drive just south of Cardiff’s downtown area.
At Wednesday’s meeting, several council members made a point of emphasizing to the Glen Park neighbors that the new committee’s main focus will be citywide, and Mayor Bruce Ehlers said he definitely could not support a skate bowl at Glen Park because of noise concerns.
Proponents, however, continued their campaign. Barry Blumenthal, one of three skaters — all in their 60s — who have been promoting the Moonlight Beach skate bowl proposal, said the city could miss out on a huge financial opportunity if it doesn’t welcome a bowl at Glen Park. Encinitas stands to make millions from Exposure Skate, an event that’s being held at Encinitas Community Park in November, he noted, adding that neighbors of that park also didn’t support its creation and it still is a day-use-only place because of community opposition.
City parks employees said they plan to launch the committee membership application process within the coming days and the deadline to apply would be the end of the month.
People who have “active” experience in using skateboarding features and/or technical knowledge in designing them are encouraged to apply, a city staff report states. The committee’s goal will be to come up with multiple project proposals, including rough cost estimates.
At its June 10 meeting, the City Council plans to select the five community members who will serve on the committee. The new group will start hosting meetings this summer, with the goal of producing a final report this fall. Council members said Wednesday they wanted to have one community member from each of the four council districts, plus one at-large representative, but added that they might be flexible about this if no one from a given council district applies.
In addition to the five community members, the group will include two council members, two city Parks & Recreation Commission members and a city parks department employee.