- At a Shafter City Council meeting in early December, Jason Baldessari, director of skate park development for Spohn Ranch, showcased the first public rendering of the Shafter Skatepark project for members of the public in attendance. The park will be made of concrete, cast on the original foundation already at the Shafter Skatepark.
- 23ABC spoke with Greg Dewitt, owner of Bakersfield Skate Company, and Chase Scharf, an area skater for about two decades, about the project and noted they're excited to see a new Kern County town getting a park, but have reservations about some parts of the design.
- The half-million dollar project is being funded by a grant, and for the city to benefit from that grant, the project must be completed by June 30th, 2024.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
You might remember a few weeks ago, when we did a story on the city of Shafter looking at giving the Shafter skate park a facelift, well at last week's city council meeting, the city public works department unveiled its first rendering of the new project
When we last touched on this story? We spoke with skaters in the community, who didn't exactly give glowing reviews of the park
"There's not much to say about our park," said Carlos Sandoval in November.
"Whenever we go out of town to a different skatepark and we tell [people] where we're from, they say, 'Oh yeah, I've been there — I've seen your skatepark. It's not that great," said Netza Garcia, also in November.
But the city is now in the process of changing that, unveiling the first rendering of a renovated skate park at last week’s city council meeting.
"Called a hubba ledge, it's next to the stairs. The way that we've designed it, we've never — I've never designed one like that or seen one like that, so it's definitely a feature that's going to be really unique to Shafter," said Jason Baldessari.
As the project keeps pushing forward, skaters are excited to see what the park could be, but there are some reservations.
Greg Dewitt is the owner of Bakersfield Skate Company and said that building up the skate park could help build up the community.
“I think that skateboarding does add a close-knit community. So anytime you improve skateboarding, I think that you're gonna improve the community itself," said Dewitt.
Chase Scharf has been skating for the bulk of his life and said as a skater, traveling to visit new parks is a common occurrence and by building up Shafter’s the city could see an influx of new people in the community as well.
“If there was a big park, you'd have way more skateboarders, way more people wanting to do it. But because there's not a good safe place to do it. It's kind of a deterrent for sure," said Scharf.
As far as the plan for the skate park? Instead of modular or pre-fabricated park, the city has opted to pour concrete on the existing pad citing it requires the last amount of maintenance.
"The beautiful thing about concrete is it's the least amount of maintenance and the most amount of creativity when it comes to designing. From a cost of ownership perspective, it's the lowest cost of ownership when it comes to skateparks, and from a user perspective, what we want to feel under our feet is concrete.
Now, there isn’t an exact date when the project will be done, but to take advantage of the grant money, the park must be completed by June 30th of next year.
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