Letter to the Editor -- Dashiell Collins

Lu and Diana Walker are right (Rebuttal, “Costa Mesa should follow

Newport Beach’s leadership” May 14). They were attacked. All the letters

printed concerning the skate park after their April 16 letter argued against their points (Readers Respond, “Skateboarding discussion

continues,” April 16). But it should surprise them that nobody wrote in

praising their letter. There was no letter saying that they were correct,

and there was no letter that even expressed the same ludicrous, unfounded

complaints. Every single letter printed disagreed with them.

Doesn’t that show something?

I think it shows that people in Newport-Mesa realize that we need a

skate park, and that they were completely wrong. On Sundays, I play

basketball with some of my friends at Mariners Elementary School. We

never have to compete with other people for a hoop. There are plenty

available, and not only at Mariners school. I often see the courts at

Schiffer Park abandoned, as well as the baseball diamonds and soccer

fields in the many parks in the Newport-Mesa area.

But any time I go skating, I either have to deal with police, security

guards or residents like the Walkers, or I have to deal with many skaters

crowding the spot or the skate park I skate in Huntington Beach. So you

see, we don’t need to provide more space for other traditional sports.

There is plenty of space for baseball, basketball, soccer or tennis, but

there are no skate parks in Newport-Mesa.

There have been locations proposed in commercial or industrial zones.

There have been locations proposed in residential zones. But to skaters,

it doesn’t matter where you build it. If I drive all the way to

Huntington Beach, Laguna Hills or Orange to skate a skate park, I would

gladly drive anywhere in the Newport-Mesa area to skate legally and

hassle free. I’m sure that the many mothers of young skaters out there

share my sentiments since it is a drag to drive kids really far away for

them to skate a skate park when the councils of Newport-Mesa are so close

to building one here.

So again, I urge the councils of Costa Mesa and Newport Beach to move

forward with plans for the skate park, and don’t let uninformed,

prejudiced, NIMBY people hinder you from doing a great good for the

community.

The Walkers should please visit one of the skate parks in Irvine,

Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo or Huntington Beach and take down the names

of all the gang members they see there.

DASHIELL COLLINS

Newport Beach