- The City of Shafter is in the early stages of renovating the city's skatepark and they are asking the public for their input on what they would like to see at the park.
- Instead of holding a formal meeting, the city opted to meet the community at the city's first ever Dia de los Muertos celebration and gather responses there. From the city and the contractor's perspective, the initial attempt at response gathering was a success. The city will be releasing an online survey for those who didn't get a chance to give their thoughts in person on the city's social media pages.
- In talking with skaters who showed up to the booth, the current state of the skate park is disappointing, but they're excited to see what the park could be.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
When you think of a skate park you probably think of bowls, ramps, stair sets, the list goes on and on. But here in Shafter? This is it.
“Whenever we go out of town to a different skate park, we tell them where we're from and then they say, 'Oh yeah, I've been there. I've seen your guys skate park. It's not that great,'” said Netza Garcia.
“Years and years have gone by and no change has come to the skate park. And I just think about that, like the change that could happen to it, the potential it has,” said Carlos Sandoval.
The City of Shafter is looking to change these notions. After receiving a five million dollar state grant, the city dedicated half a million dollars to renovating the park using the existing pad to add new features to benefit skaters new and old.
“The hope is to for the community to get more enjoyment out of the existing skate park that we have. The equipment that's out there right now was meant to be temporary. Fortunately, with the state grant, we'll be able to upgrade the equipment,” said Mike James, the city's public works director.
Instead of holding a formal meeting and asking the community to show up, the city met the community where they were at the city’s Dia de los Muertos celebration and Shafter showed it doesn’t push mongo, whether they skate or not.
“When I do a lot of these, it's design meetings, and it's a little less — a little more formal. I got to, like, really talk to people and kind of meet people in the community and like, hear, you know, what they're interested in, what they want to see, and had people come up that don't even skate talk about, 'We just want to see, you know, make it colorful, make it artistic, make it visually, you know, something we want to look at,'" said Jason Baldessari. "It's just been cool. The reception has been great.”
If you missed the workshop, you can still give your input through a survey found on the City of Shafter’s social media pages. That will be open until November 17th.
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