About half a dozen teens attended the meeting, a much smaller gathering than has come to previous meetings discussing the park.
The council itself only had three members in attendance. Councilman Roy Simons was absent, as was Mayor Curt Giambruno, whose wife, Judy, died Sunday.
Vice Mayor Chuck Leonard, handling the gavel for the evening in Giambruno's stead, asked for a moment of silence at the start of the meeting in Judy Giambruno's honor, a gesture, he said, for which "she would have slapped me up the side of the head.”
City Administrator Dale Neiman placed on the agenda an ordinance to update city code to match the rules that will be posted on new signs at the park.
But the main issue Neiman brought to the council was that the children who ride BMX bikes and skateboards at the park are not using helmets and pads, which are required.
The bikers and skateboarders also are using the park at the same day, after the city established a rule requiring them to use the park on alternate days because of liability issues, Neiman said.
“If they don't follow the rules and somebody gets seriously hurt, the city is going to be liable,” he said.
That leaves the city with two basic options – ignore the situation and accept the higher liability, or find a way to get compliance with the rules.
One way to do that, suggested Neiman, was a temporary closure of the park. He compared the situation to when his daughter ignores rules and he, in turn, takes away a privilege.
The alternative, he said, was to cite children and take them to court which, he said, “doesn't make a whole lot of sense.”
Failure to follow the rules, suggested community resident and youth group leader Ken Savin, was more an issue of children at the park having no idea of what the rules actually are.
Savin, a member of the skate park committee that formed last fall to lead fundraising to renovate the park, said the new signage hasn't been installed, and only one sign with rules is currently at the park – and it's located at the back, is in small print and is high up where it's hard for children to see.
Speaking to the children at the park Thursday, Savin said he found that many of them simply weren't aware of the alternating days rules.
He agreed, however, that rule compliance has started to lag. “When the park first reopened they were a little better about wearing their helmets, and they have gotten lax.”
Neiman agreed that the signage issue needed to be addressed.
Leonard asked if the current sign mentions the safety equipment requirement; Savin said yes. To that, Leonard responded that there was no excuse for not wearing helmets and pads.
Savin suggested that many of the children simply can't afford the equipment. At a later point in the meeting he said helmets generally run about $40, with pads costing $30. An effort is under way to raise money to buy helmets through an online retailer at $10 each to provide equipment for those who can't afford it.
Joey Luiz, who also sits on the skate park committee, urged against taking the closure approach. “I think it would be a huge mistake to close the park. I think we have to find an alternative.”
Luiz said he's seen about 50 children using the park every time he's gone by; if the park were closed, Luiz wondered where they would go, because there are few other activities – no bowling alley or skating rink – and many challenges “that face our youth and draw them into the wrong direction.”
Leonard asked him about alternatives; Luiz supported posting more signs, and finding ways to work with park users to convince them to use equipment while keeping the park open.
City resident Jim Honegger agreed that signage is a major issue, and he suggested it needed to be more prominent. He asked if new signage – bearing the skate park's new name, in honor of Andy Johnson – could be in place by the planned April 12 grand reopening for the park.
“That's the plan,” said Neiman.
Honegger also asked about using volunteer staffing to encourage rule compliance. Neiman said the city has talked internally about using police volunteers to do just that.
The city should try a number of other avenues before closing the park, Honegger said. “I suggest, if you have to get tougher, cite 'em.”
Savin proposed a system of renting or lending out safety equipment. He said at Healdsburg's skate park the police heavily monitor the park and write citations for noncompliance.
“Consequently, the park is not used very often,” he said, because only “rich kids” can afford the necessary equipment.
Council member Joyce Overton, who worked with the skate park committee to raise money and get the park repaired and reopened, reminded the park's users that they have to police themselves or they'll lose the park.
She also questioned the assertion that they can't afford helmets and pads, considering how expensive bikes and skateboards are.
Council member Judy Thein said her primary concern was safety. She didn't want to cite children, but was receptive to closing the park to get the point across.
Overton asked if they could wait a week before starting strict enforcement in an effort to get the word out, but Thein said she didn't want to delay increasing enforcement due to risk of injury.
Supervisor Jeff Smith suggested the city hand out fix-it tickets to children who are found without safety equipment. Rather than paying a citation, parents would be required to buy the equipment and take the receipts to the city to have the ticket signed off.
“That way you're killing two birds with one stone,” said Smith, noting that while it's punitive "it's accomplishing what you're after to begin with.”
Neiman questioned how it could be enforced. Smith suggested that if, within 30 days, the citation holder didn't comply with the requirement to buy the equipment, they would receive a $100 fine.
Smith said that was better than punishing many people for the refusal of a few to follow the rules. “To me, it's respect, and they've got to learn respect.”
City resident Jim Scholz said the city shouldn't take any more risk. “We've tried self-policing and it didn't work.”
He suggested immediate enforcement, and not allowing children without equipment to use the facility. The city, said Scholz, can't afford injuries and resulting lawsuits.
Joan Moore, director of the city's Hot Spot Youth Center, added that she thought using police volunteers was the best option for keeping the park safe and getting children to use equipment.
Council members disagreed on how to proceed. Overton felt that there hadn't been enough time to get the word out about the rules before increased enforcement started, and wanted better guidelines for what would lead to a temporary park closure. Thein felt it was critical to act soon.
“I knew this was going to end up being a problem,” said Leonard.
The council ended up taking Neiman's suggestion, which was to wait until the next meeting, digest the comments they'd received from the community, put new signage in place and come back with some guidelines on what would trigger a park closure.
In the mean time, the council voted 3-0 to accept the changes to city code to make it match the new park signs, which call for alternating usage of bikes and skateboards on different days.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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