PAGE A6, KEIZERTIMES, MARCH 24, 2017
REPAIR: ‘It’s another bandage. It
might give us another few months’
(Continued from Page A1)
It was and remains the largest skate
park in the mid-Willamette Valley
area at 21,000 square feet. It’s nearly
double the size of the next largest one,
Aumsville’s 11,000-square-foot Brian
Haney Memorial Skate Park. The
other three nearby parks are all under
10,000 square feet. Johnson said he
wasn’t aware of just how large Carlson
is until recently.
“With size comes a much higher
cost for the repairs,” Johnson said.
After nearly 18 years with only a
bare minimum of upkeep, the park is
falling into disrepair with large cracks
forming, and some areas – like the
bowl – nearly a complete hazard for
certain types of riders.
On top of those issues, there are
others that would not be evident to
the casual observer. When the park
was built, the idea appears to have
been putting as many types of surfaces
– bowls, ramps and grinding rails – in
as possible and not as much thought
was given to how riders would transi-
tion from one area of the park to an-
other without dismounting and walk-
ing to the next space. More modern
skate park designs incorporate transi-
tions into the visioning process.
The cost of bringing the park up
to modern standards and resurfac-
ing what is allowed to remain is hefty.
Estimates range from $500,000 to
$650,000. However, Johnson told the
board that a less costly resurfacing
project on the current layout might be
much cheaper, about $60,000.
“A crack repair could buy a couple
of years for planning the big repair,”
Johnson said.
The price tag, however, is still well
beyond what’s available in the cur-
rent parks budget, roughly $330,000
for all of Keizer’s 240 acres of park
land. Those circumstances are what
led Johnson to propose suspending a
matching grant program for one year
and freeing up funds for the resurfac-
ing.
Suspending the matching grant
program for any period of time
also comes at a cost. The 3-year-old
matching grant program has been
used for projects small and large in
Keizer parks. Recently, a grant request
was approved to install a fence around
the Rickman Community Garden,
but the largest benefi ciary of the pro-
gram has by far been the Keizer Little
League fi elds. Efforts to rehabilitate
the facility have received $20,000 in
the past two years. With any match-
ing grant approval, the requestors
must provide matching funds or in-
kind services equal to the amount of
the grant given by the Parks Advisory
Board. The parks board is allocated
$15,000 each year to provide match-
ing grants.
A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
Without any certainty that the
Keizer City Council will approve a fee
creating a dedicated parks fund, the
parks board was faced with making a
choice between the repairs at Carlson
and the matching grant fund.
Suspending the program provides
Johnson with roughly $26,000 to re-
pair all the cracks at the skate park, but
the conversations regarding the deci-
sion were wide-ranging and took into
account the effects on both programs.
“We have a pot of money (match-
ing grant funds) being used for really
good projects and have compounded
to do good work. Now, we are faced
with the decision of robbing our fu-
ture to do something now,” said parks
board member Matt Lawyer.
Scott Klug, who would later say he
supported the decision to suspend the
matching grant program, played devil’s
advocate.
“I don’t see the people who use the
skate park coming forward (to advo-
cate for it). It seems like we are putting
money into something when another
project might come along with more
support of the users,” Klug said.
Board member Dylan Juran coun-
tered.
“The value (of Carlson) is hid-
den in other places like the businesses
keypoints
• Matching grants
suspended
• Change frees up
$26,000 for skate
park repairs
• Total renovation
would be $500K to
$650 K
not having skaters in parking lot, and
it’s less of a liability to us,” Juran said.
“The primary user base is minors who
don’t know how to deal with a bunch
of adults, and who are looking for a lot
(in terms of money).”
Clint Holland, a parks board mem-
ber and a major advocate and volun-
teer in the KLL rehabilitations, said
skate park users don’t have a lot of the
expenses associated with other sport-
ing activities and wanted to see some
of the parents more involved.
“There’s groups like Rotary and
Kiwanis that they could go to,” Hol-
land said.
Juran countered that skate park us-
ers also don’t have the revenues, like
player fees, organized sports generate.
Klug added that there was a differ-
ence between asking a third baseman
to take care of their area of the fi eld
and asking a skate park user to “patch
a hole in cement.”
Lawyer said he visited the park a
few weeks prior to the meeting and
chatted up some of the kids and adults
who frequented the site.
“They pointed out a handful of
places they absolutely could not use,”
Lawyer said. “It’s not them-and-us
conversation. It’s about the safety of
our kids and the safety of our assets,”
Parks board member Jim Taylor
said his primary concern was wasting
the money put into repairs if a larger
redesign project might be in the off-
ing.
“It’s another bandage. It might give
us another few months, but might be
good money after bad,” Taylor said.
Johnson said that even if a repair
project only bought the city time to
get other plans off the ground, it could
still be worthwhile and make closing
the park for safety reasons more un-
likely.
“Once it gets to a certain point it
will deteriorate more rapidly. If water
gets under the cracks it could cause
the whole foundation to malfunc-
tion,” Johnson said.
The board voted unanimously to
suspend the matching grant program
for one year. If a parks fee becomes a
reality, there is the possibility of con-
tinuing the matching grant program
in the next fi scal year.
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