The skate park in Cortez’s Parque de Vida is physically unsafe. That was the message several people gave the Cortez City Council at its regular meeting Tuesday night.
Local educator Abbie Herring, who works with the Safe Space Action Team, told the council she recently began volunteering with an indoor skate park on Beech Street in Cortez. She heard from many young people that they don’t feel safe the outdoor skate park and that’s why they frequent the indoor one.
She said the outdoor park is eroding and in disrepair.
Herring also said better lighting is needed so kids can skate there on winter evenings when the weather is dry, and because more lighting would discourage dangerous people from hanging out there.
A man who works with the nonprofit School Community Youth Collaborative, Neco Escoe, said he has frequented the skate park since he was young but over the last 20 years it has become “unskatable.”
Escoe said he has been doing a skateboarding program for the last four years with SCYC and has a surplus of 20 or more kids most weeks.
“That is an entire community that is being ignored, and that absolutely breaks my heart,” he said. “If you had something you wanted to express and do and it was being taken away right in front of your eyes, I can imagine you would feel pretty upset.”
Veronica Wynhausen of Dolores echoed those concerns. She said she is a roller-skater but avoids the Cortez skate park because of the safety issues, both the physical ones such as cracks in the surface and the problems with potentially dangerous people being there.
She noted that skateboarding is an Olympic sport now and pointed out that it is one of the most affordable sports for youths.
The director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, Creighton Wright, told KSJD he’s aware of the concerns.
He said the skate park’s concrete surface has spalled over the past several years.
“Going over a rough spot isn’t that great,” he said.
Also, the hill on the north side has sloughed, allowing rocks to get in. He said a contractor should be starting work on those issues soon, doing some concrete work and possible creating a wall on the north side. Wright said there are already lights at the park, including some floodlights that were added to poles last year, and he’ll talk with skaters about what else they need.
He said security cameras in all city parks are being replaced and there will be a camera directed at the outdoor skate park.
“We would really, really like to have one at the skate park, but we may not be able to make that work,” he said.
The city will be adding some minor enhancements including a low rail for beginning skaters, a picnic table, and a working water fountain, he said.
Wright also said the city is working to renew its partnership with SCYC’s Skate Club. The Skate Club may be at the skate park one day a week providing some supervised skating, he said.
The city wants to have outreach and connectivity with SCYC, he said, so they can provide comments and concerns the city can react to. One issue still to be resolved is the artistic murals that were at one point on the walls of the skate park, but discussions will continue, he said.
“We have plans in place and some of these concerns may be addressed very soon,” Wright said. He said he hopes work can begin on some of the physical as well as the programmatic and partnership issues before summer even begins.
