Clackamas/ Happy Valley Skatepark proposal

[rickskater]

I would like to inform all of you that I just had the first meeting with Happy Valley Park Advisory, Suzanne Montalbano last night at Tom Hale’s house. Mr. and Mrs. Hale http://www.HaleHomes.com is a resident of Happy Valley and their son Chris (Sunrise middle school student) is also a skater who wanted to persuade our city to open up a skate park. They’ll be joining this project in support of our goal.

So far, the ideal plan is having the skate park built at the Happy Valley Park located up by Ridgecrest Rd/ top corner. (The spot kind of soggy not very useable) I've tried to locate the field for the H.V. future skatepark and came up with this satellite image (below) from MSN Mappoint. If this is the correct location, I will update and confirm later.

Our first approach would be gathering as many local families (skater/ parents) to attend the North Clackamas Park Recreation Dept. NCPRD meeting on May 10th 2007 at 7pm. Unfortunately, they don’t have a fix place for meetings so we will need to wait on the venue. (Suzanne will let me know the meeting location later) We are hoping that there would be enough families showing up to express their support for the skatepark idea to the city leaders on May 10th as it is important for the city leaders to see that it is something that the community really wants and need for the safety of the children living in our community.

After that first NCPRD meeting, there will be another following meeting (5 days later) with the City Council on May 15th 2007, much like the first NCPRD meeting. It would be great if many families show up to propose the plan to council members. That would be the first step of getting skatepark build in Happy Valley. In the meantime, I’m still working on collecting more signatures and email addresses from online petition in support of this proposed plan. http://www.petitiononline.com/hv97015/ If you would like to help out with the online petition, please forward this LINK to your friends and spread the word. If you need a copy of the flyer for your business or school, please go to this LINK and print out the jpg file.

It would be greatly appreciated if you feel passionate about having a skatepark being built in Happy Valley to please come to the two meetings with all your supporting friends and families so we can begin the process in making the dream come true.

Rick
skateparkHappyValley@yahoo.com
http://www.petitiononline.com/hv97015/



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[rickskater]

All of the Happy Valley Parks Advisory Committee members just received an invitation to the June 5th Happy Valley City Council meeting because Dan Zinzer of North Clackamas Parks & Rec. will be there with a presentation in regard to a Capital improvement plan update and a development update for the parks. I think this would be a great time to make a large presence of the skate park advocates. It would be a perfect time for Chris to do his presentation. Any support or information that you would all like to bring to the meeting would show to the perfect audience since both City Council and NCPRD will be there at the same time.
See what you can all arrange together. I will be there too! What a great opportunity to hit two birds with one stone. The meeting is at 7:00 p.m. at City Hall on June 5.
Best regards,
Suzanne

[rickskater]

Hi

I just came back from the first council meeting regarding the building of a skate park in Happy Valley/ Clackamas/ Milwaukie:

The meeting started at 7:00PM Jun 5,2007 with the attendance of ONLY two families: Rick's and the Hansen, also Chuck Willis (a member of SPS Skaters for Public Skateparks www.skatersforpublicskateparks.org & organizer of www.burnsideskatepark.com ) showed up at the meeting for support. Thanks again Chuck.

We are very thankful for the voice of Dan Hansen and Chuck Willis for speaking on behalf of many skaters and parents of skaters this evening. It appears that the Council members are in favor of this project as long as there is some visual detail to the appearance of the skate park.

Prior to the meeting, I was told by Suzanne (Happy Valley Park Advisory) that Chris Hale (student of Sunrise Middle school) will be appearing to speak in support of the project and had a speech prepared for this evening, somehow he and his family did not show and we didn’t have anything prepared in advance to present concerning the skate park issue. Also, Suzanne left before the skate park subject was brought up, so I felt kind of lost being in the meeting and perhaps even wasted my time attending.

It was near the end of the meeting (about 2 hrs later),when Mr. Hansen asked the board members if there's any future plans of a skate park being built in either Clackamas or Happy Valley that gave me relief with the subject finally broached.

Surprisingly, the city leaders showed interest in the plan and asked several questions. Chuck also spoke out and tried his best to explain to the city leaders about the various sizes and dimensions of a feasible skate park, but the leaders needed some visual aid to help them grasp the whole concept of what a skate park requires and asked for us to return with more information. We are looking into meeting again and will keep you posted should you be interested in attending the next meeting.

Rick

[rickskater]

An additional piece of important info:

During the conclusion of last night's meeting, we had a chance to speak to North Clackamas Senior Planner Michelle Healy. Michelle mentioned to us of a possible skate park project that would be situated at the North Clackamas Park located: 5440 SE Kellogg Creek Drive, Milwaukie, OR 97222.

Link for the Map
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=5440+SE+Kellogg+Creek+Dr,+Portland,+Clackamas,+Oregon+97222,+United+States&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=31.095668,59.238281&ie=UTF8&cd=1&ll=45.427627,-122.608302&spn=0.006716,0.014462&t=k&z=16&om=1

The timeline for this project will be shown on the schedule below,Michelle asked for anyone interested to attend in support of this project:

June/July First public meeting
Aug/Sept Second public meeting
Oct/ Nov Third public meeting
Dec/ Jan 2008 Presentation of final concept plan

For more information and detail, please contact Ms. Healy.
michellehea@co.clackamas.or.us
Phone 503-794-8004
Fax 503-794-8005
www.co.clackamas.or.us/ncprd

[rickskater]

I just got the email from Milwaukie Senior Planner Michelle shown as below:

we are starting a planning process for the entire north side of this park. We have already received numerous comments about what might be nice for this part of the park, but have made no decisions on any of the actual improvements. I want to encourage you all to participate in this process, if you want to suggest a skate park somewhere in this park (it doesn't necessarily mean there will be one as we have to balance all the suggestions - your suggestion would be evaluated by a consultant to see if it fits).

For your info, here is low down on what we'll be doing at each of the meetings:

June 20 @ 6 pm, Alder Creek Middle School - Public meeting ask people who attend what they'd like to see on this side of the park, talk about existing conditions out there, opportunities and constraints (collect ideas)

Aug/Sept (date not schedule yet) - Consultant will provide a few conceptual design alternatives for consideration, public will be asked to weigh in on what option they like, or suggest a hybrid. Hopefully we'll get some consensus on a concept.

Oct/Nov (date not scheduled yet) - Present preferred alternative for public review. Make any other adjustments as necessary.

Dec/Jan - District Advisory Board considers adoption of final plan.

Please call me if you want to talk any more about this. We really want this to be an open process, so I appreciate your help getting the word out about the project (also any clarification you can make to the e-mail below would be great). We recognize the need for skate parks and hope to work with you (if not at this location, hopefully another somewhere else).

Thanks,
Michelle

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Hi Rick,

I want to let you know that I just got a call from Dennis McCarthy of the Oregonian who is looking for a story to do about happy valley. He heard about the interest to have a skate park and asked me if I had a contact. I gave him your e-mail. I hope that is ok. Is there anyone else who would be a good contact to ask about this?

Also, we have a skate park presentation on our Advisory Board agenda June 14. Is that you all or someone else?

Thanks,
Michelle

[rickskater]

A couple of days ago,I was interviewed over the phone by Oregonian reporter, Dennis McCarthy who was interested in doing an article regarding the issue of skate park development in Happy Valley/Clackamas. You can read up on this article that was released yesterday titled,"Second brother asks city for a place to skate". Everything was stated accurately except the ages of my kids,which should read: daughter that's 12 and son is 9.

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/metro_south_news/1181609737145690.xml&coll=7

Also,I just came back from Glenhaven after attending the second North Clackamas Parks and Rec. meeting. The meeting went very well and concluded a lot sooner than the first meeting. Chris finally had his chance to present his speech to the board members and it appears that most are in favor of the skate park idea. We were told that they will need to figure out the logistics to this project and the process will take some time before we see anything develop.