Skaters will soon pay $1 a day to use the Morgan Hill Skate
Park. The money will be used to pay for supervision at the park,
which has been overrun with rule-breakers since opening a month
ago.
Skaters will soon pay $1 a day to use the Morgan Hill Skate Park. The money will be used to pay for supervision at the park, which has been overrun with rule-breakers since opening a month ago.
Wednesday, the Morgan Hill City Council unanimously approved a supervised skate park membership model with a $1 day pass operation plan.
Skaters at the park reacted to the news Thursday.
“That’s outrageous. We should just be able to skate,” Dylan Guynn, 12, said. Guynn said he’d probably visit the park twice a week instead of his usual five. He’d spend his off days skating downtown.
Orlando Carlson, 22, of Gilroy, agreed, saying if the city starts imposing rules and having supervision, they’ll go elsewhere.
“Like the parking lots at Tennant Station. They complained for years. That’s going to start getting going again. (People who) like skating the streets – they’re here.”
To cut down the cost of having staffing at the park, the park will be open 1,000 hours less per year than with the unmanned park. Now, the park will be open all day on weekends and during the summer and limited school day hours.
Recreation Manager Chris Ghione estimates that the recreation department will recover 65 percent of the $16,000 annual staffing cost.
Frequent users will have the option to purchase a $15 monthly skate park membership. Low income users can purchase a $7.50 monthly pass.
Use of the skate park will be free to Centennial Recreation Center members.
One skater showed up to oppose the fee and helmet requirement. Jason King, 31, of Morgan Hill, told the council that the skaters are very grateful for the park, even if they aren’t able to express that in words or actions.
King reasoned that while there’s a concern the park users aren’t under control, at least they’re concentrated in one place.
And, King said, if the city tries to rein skaters in with rules, “they’ll just take it back into the streets, away from your control.”
King said the skating community may have felt overlooked in Morgan Hill before, and now, with rules imposed and fees, skaters may start to feel that “you guys maybe don’t care about them.
“Realize that these kids are really happy and, they’re there,” he said.
Mary Falbo, a retired school teacher who frequents the adjacent senior center, said she’s “100 percent for any activity that’s for kids. But not skateboarding around a senior center.
“There was a skateboarder right behind me as I was backing out (of a parking space). I understand rules have been given to them but they’re not complying … They think they can do (fancy tricks). They could hit cars, people. All kinds of accidents could happen.”
The city initially planned to man the park with a vote of approval in April 2008. Then the financial crisis worsened, and in January the city council decided to have an unsupervised park instead.
Since opening in late June, the park has been overrun with teens and adults alike who break many of the park’s rules. The most broken rule is the one requiring safety equipment, helmets, knee and elbow pads. There’s also littering, smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages, and erratic travel through the recreation center parking lot and sidewalks, recreation staff reported.
Mayor Steve Tate said trying an unsupervised park was something the city had to do. And while there’s a chance the city could lose a lot of users by going to a fee-based, rules-oriented system, Tate said. “It’s our responsibility to keep the community safe.”
One other park in the area charges a users fee. At 68,000 square feet, San Jose’s Lake Cunningham Regional Skate Park is California’s largest skate park. San Jose charges users $3 per day, and all users must sign a liability waiver before entering. For users younger than 18, the parents must sign the waiver.
In addition to the staffing, the council also approved a staff request to spend $50,000 on park enhancements such as bleachers, shade structures, a drinking fountain, picnic tables and a video camera system to connect to the existing surveillance network there.
