More than half-pipe there

Though the building of Costa Mesa’s skate park begins this month, Jim

Gray won’t be at ease until the concrete is laid.

Gray, 41, will have to wait just a little longer.

The pouring of concrete will come within six months, though the

groundbreaking for the city project was Wednesday at TeWinkle Park.

The groundbreaking was somewhat bittersweet for Gray, a father of

three, who still skates between two and five days a week.

As a leader who helped lobby for the skate park, he sees the

city’s effort to build it as a boon for children and the community,

but he is also concerned that the project -- though he stresses it is

a good one -- is not as good as it could be.

As he and a coalition of skate park enthusiasts wait for the park,

Gray is talking about a letter-writing campaign to push for a similar

park in Newport Beach.

Gray answered some questions put to him by the Pilot’s Ryan

Carter.

Why is a skate park so important in Costa Mesa? How long has the

effort been going on?

A skate park is an important thing in every city. Our local cities

are way behind many others in the nation, and we are the hotbed of

skateboarding, and more professional quality skateboards are

manufactured in Costa Mesa than any other city in the USA. That fact

makes the whole issue of being years behind the rest of the nation

that much more ironic. Newport Beach needs a skate park too, but

Costa Mesa just reacted quicker, so we’ve followed through to finish

off what we started.

Statistically, it’s proven why a skate park is important. Many

people still don’t know that more kids are riding skateboards than

playing Little League baseball, and there are statistics now to prove

it.

The fact is we’ve got lots of baseball fields around, don’t we?

So, it’s time to invest in what kids are doing today, which

facilities don’t exist for. I guess the biggest reason it’s truly

important is that there are thousands of kids who love to ride

skateboards more than anything else in life, and they have no where

to do it locally and legally. Society should support positive

recreation opportunities, especially for kids, and it’s really bad to

raise children who love something as much as most skateboarders do,

and then just ignore them, and tell them they can’t do it anywhere.

Socially, we need to give the youth a reason to respect

government, and being chased out of everywhere they go for doing

something that is inherently a positive thing is no way to educate

kids to respect government. Costa Mesa’s recreation master plan now

supports this in writing, so it’s not really even a question of if

it’s needed anymore. I grew up playing Little League baseball for

many years, but once I picked up a skateboard, I didn’t have any

interest in most other sports any more, so over 30 years later I can

relate to how and why many of the skaters just feel ignored. The

importance has always been so apparent to me, and how anyone in this

day and age could not see that, just by looking around them, just

baffles me. They’d had to be living under a rock not to have at least

one kid in their neighborhood who rides his skateboard for hours a

day. The effort to get a skate park built started well over a decade

ago in Costa Mesa, and I’ve had people contact me that told me they

went before the Newport Beach City Council asking for a place to

skate nearly 30 years ago.

What’s your general reaction to breaking ground on a state park in

Costa Mesa?

Relieved, happy, excited, but I still have an uneasy feeling that

won’t go away until I see concrete poured.

You’ve talked to supporters about your disappointment about how

the park, at this point, is not being built to its full potential.

How so?

I don’t want to send the wrong signal. The skate park is going to

be fun, and luckily we got the best concrete contractor that I know

of to do the work, so what does get built should be as good as it can

be.

The disappointment lies within the fact that we are building a

smaller skate park when we need a much larger one, and I want to make

sure that it has as much functional usable space within the area we

have been given. As it sits right now, it is not maximized to it’s

fullest potential.

If it can be made better, how?

There is more room to build some additional skateable objects that

had been designed but were removed from the plan before it was

submitted for bid. It was not only some additional skate objects, but

also more benches for parents to sit and watch, areas for skaters to

keep backpacks from littering up the ground, making sure there were

water faucets inside the park, and shade areas so that people could

sit and get out of the sun and take a rest from the heat during their

sessions.

It’s all important to building the park correctly, and it’s

frustrating because we know the city put in showers at their new

pool, and drinking fountains in their new recreation center, and

didn’t finish those projects with anything noticeable left out.

I guess what takes it over the top is the fact that 10 months ago

now, I met with several city officials and told them we had someone

willing to pay six figures for naming rights to the park. and they

haven’t done anything about it, yet. The frustrating thing is that

the city cut out things that could make the park closer to 100%, and

probably only cost $50,000 or so, yet we have someone who has been

willing to negotiate a deal worth at least twice that much, and they

have not acted upon it. It’s just sad when there have actually been

no negotiations, and it is apparently going to get built at less than

it could be. I am still happy, and the park will be good. It’s tough

for me to stay quiet about that. It’s just not logical, or right.

By the way, who was the local manufacturer you say offered the

good sponsorship deal? Was it your skate park coalition that brought

the offer?

I wish the company who has made the offers was me, as there are

few things I’d rather contribute to, but I don’t quite have that much

extra cash laying around. We are a pretty small company with a very

limited budget. I am not doing this to get marketing value for my

company, and I can’t afford to donate money, so I just donate time to

make it happen. Yes, it was me who brought the offer to the city, as

I am close with the company who is interested in the naming rights,

and they discussed the concept with me last December. They have

preferred to just stay in the background and see what can happen, so

they don’t really want me to use their name to leverage the deal in

the newspaper or whatever ... .”

Is there anything you can do now to make the park the ideal

design?

No, the ideal design can’t happen, because to do that you’d have

to make it 40,000 square feet instead of 15,000, and 25,000 to 30,000

is about average these days for most new parks being built. That is

not realistic or going to happen at this point. So, we’d be satisfied

with settling for optimum design at it’s approved size.

We already have a couple more items designed that fit right into

the footprint of the park without increasing any square footage or

significantly changing the difficulty for the contractor, but the

clock is ticking and the city has shown no real interest in making it

happen. That is where my frustration lies. I am not one who gives up

easily, and the skaters have waited a long time and deserve some

effort put into this.

What will be the consequence of a park that is not funded or built

to its full potential?

The major consequence will just be that each skate area will be a

little more crowded, and we are already going to have an extremely

crowded park.

We wanted to add another additional small bowl area separated from

the one that is on the design so on crowded weekend days, more people

will be able to skate at the same time.

Getting the most people to be able to use the park at the same

time is the toughest challenge in designing a skate park.

We realize that the city needs at least two major skate parks, and

probably several small neighborhood parks, so to expect the first one

completed to handle the number of participants that we have is very

unrealistic, so we just want it’s function fully maximized.

It’s almost there, but not quite.

What has been the biggest challenge over the years in getting a

skate park approved in the city?

The NIMBY, or Not in My Backyard effect. For quite a few years

now, no one with more than half a brain could argue the need, but

location was still thrown in our face, as if there was nowhere to

build a park. It’s still what Newport has used to pretend they don’t

have anywhere to build a park.

Bottom line, that is an ignorant excuse that is tossed out so

nobody in the city has to put any extra effort into looking. They

were always only a very small group, but what I’ve learned is that a

small group can throw off the whole community if they are loud

enough, whether it’s good for the city or not.

So now you are looking at Newport Beach to build a skate park?

What is your vision for Newport Beach, and why a park there? What

will be the next effort there, letter writing?

Yes. Newport Beach needs a park there too. They too need a place

for the thousands of kids spread across their city that ride

skateboards to have a legal safe place to go. I am very sorry to say,

but the reality is that there are more kids in Newport riding

skateboards than sailing in yacht clubs.

We are not looking to close down the old school sports, but rather

having the city spread it’s recreation funds fairly based on the need

of the community, and without a skate park, they are just not doing

that. We will write letters, and at some point start showing up at

every City Council meeting until they open their minds. We may also

get someone new on the council that may help us start up the process

quicker, so we will be looking at that angle to. We just won’t be

done until a Newport Beach skate park is also built.

The bottom line is we have real work to do too, so we are just

going to have to approach it when we can find the time.