City of Brentwood California City Council
CITY COUNCIL AGENDA ITEM NO. 24
Meeting Date: June 10, 2003
Subject/Title: Approve the City of Brentwood Park and Recreation
Commission recommendation to deny a request for the addition of lights
for after hour use of the City of Brentwood skate park
Submitted by: Craig D. Bronzan, Director of Parks and Recreation
Poldina Scherff, Recreation Services Manager
Ken DeSilva, Parks Services Manager
Approved by: John Stevenson, City Manager
RECOMMENDATION
Approve the City of Brentwood Park and Recreation Commission
recommendation to deny a request for the addition of lights for after
hour use of the City of Brentwood skate park.
On November 26, 2002, a group of skate park users
addressed the City Council under Citizen’s Participation requesting
consideration of the addition of lights at the skate park. Mayor
McPoland directed Parks and Recreation staff and the Park and Recreation
Commission to review the request and return to City Council with a
recommendation.
BACKGROUND
Park and Recreation staff met with the individuals on December 5, 2002,
to discuss the request and to review the history of the project. In
meeting with the citizens, all users of the skate park, staff discovered
that no one in the group had been a part of the original skate park task
force or had any knowledge of history of the project. Staff spent a good
deal of time on the history and decisions that had been made through
development of the skate park and reviewed the request (see February 20,
2003 department memo). Staff then advised the group to:
1) Develop a petition
2) Get the surrounding residents within a tenth of a mile radius of the
park to sign the petition
3) Look at other facilities that have lights and get examples
4) Provide options to offset the cost of staffing the park and cost of
upgrading the lights
5) Bring results to the Park and Recreation Commission and present their
proposal
Staff met again with the group on February 13, 2003 to discuss progress
and found out the users had talked with 79 of the 224 houses that
surround the park. Staff also discussed how to present the proposal to
the Park and Recreation Commission for the February 27, 2003 meeting.
The Park and Recreation Commission discussed the request on February 27,
2003, with a recommendation from staff to not approve the proposal for
the following reason:
• “One of the main reasons lights were not included in the design was
out of respect to neighbor requests. Staff does not believe that there
is sufficient neighborhood support for the request. We asked the group
to go and talk with the 224 homes that surround the skate park, of
which, only 79 have provided their support on the petition. It is our
understanding that they did not talk to all the homes. When presented
with the option of taking additional time to go back so they could talk
with all the neighbors, the group said no, they wanted to move forward.
Staff supports the original intent of the park, which was not to allow
after hour use”.
Chairperson Cowling then thanked all those who took the time to come to
the Commission and express their views. He said if there were not the
concerns of intrusion and financial there would not be a problem with
complying with the requests to lengthen the hours and light the
facility. He summed up the problems as he sees them to four major issues
as follows:
1. Light intrusion
2. Supervision costs for longer hours.
3. Lighting upgrade costs
4. Electricity costs
City of Brentwood City Council
708 Third Street
Brentwood, CA 94513
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