Where will the skaters go?

After promising nearby businesses that the 42nd Avenue site would only be temporary, city officials looked throughout the city for a permanent site. Recently, city officials found a spot at county-owned Coyote Point Park and agreed to operate the facility if the county provided the land.

The city is currently reviewing design plans which will be brought before the County Board of Supervisors in the next few months, according to Paul Council, San Mateo community services manager. The city also plans public input sessions before deciding on the final plans for the site. The park will not be built for about 18 months, Council said.

"Skateboarders are just not going to have anywhere to go, they're going to have to go out to the streets and into the downtown areas," said Larry Thomas, an 18-year-old site supervisor at the park.

Skateboarders say business owners, not the police, give them trouble in areas where skateboarding has been made illegal. "No one cares about the law, even if they get tickets," said Jason Crouch, co-founder of San Mateo's skateboarders guild and manager of a downtown skate shop. "Skaters are not doing anything wrong, they're usually just cruising through to get somewhere."

The city sent out a letter to skate park users at the end of October warning of the impending closure. The letter also stated that the city has to keep its commitment to the business owners in the area. This came after business owners complained about noise problems. The city promised the 42nd Avenue skate park would be temporary and would not be used after January 2001.

"But what that letter fails to mention is the city's commitment to the kids and that they promised we'd have somewhere to skate," Thomas said. "There were two parts to the bargain and they're only admitting to the business side, they're not making any obligation to us." He added that the city has made skateboarding illegal in two main places -The downtown corrider and on 42nd Avenue.

"And this is all before another skatepark is built," Thomas said.

Council suggested that skateboarders could use other nearby skate parks. "We hope to replace it as soon as possible, but we hope people can use other skate parts, like the one in San Francisco, or Santa Clara, or Menlo Park," he said.

There were no temporary sites the city could find in the interim and Council said the money for a temporary site would be better used towards the new park. "Hopefully we'll have a much nicer park," he said.

"We're really excited about the new park," Crouch said, adding that the distance people will have to travel to get to the park will eliminate some people who just come to hang out. "We end up having some kooks hanging out, but the new park will be a place for the right people to skate."

Thomas, a college freshman who regularly attended city council meetings concerning the skate park, said he is disappointed the city does not have the park built by now. "They've had two years to plan and it's still going to take another one and a half years," he said. "If I have a report due, I don't wait an hour before its due to do it."

He worries that the public input sessions the city is planning are not the best way to plan the park. "It would be better if they talked with seasoned professionals, like the people who built the new parks up in Oregon," he said.