A. Martin UW Photography
A neighborhood controversy has enveloped Glencoe Park, pitting the Dallas skating community in support of a skatepark at Glencoe against neighbors in opposition to adding the amenity to the 14-acre park.
The genesis of the debate goes back to a 2016 recommended level of service study the Dallas Parks and Recreation Department completes every ten years. “Recommended level of service” is park speak for determining if the ratio of a certain amenity to Dallas’ population meets industry standards. For example, the 2016 study cites that Dallas parks have 206 playgrounds where the population would merit 142 playgrounds. In fact, in a stat that might be surprising to park-goers, Dallas meets or exceeds the industry standards for playgrounds, soccer fields, basketball courts, baseball diamonds, tennis courts, golf courses, and square feet of rec centers.
Dallas falls below the norm for miles of trails and off-leash dog parks. The amenity where Dallas falls the farthest behind the municipal park threshold is skateparks. The numbers say that Dallas’ population warrants eighteen skateparks. Dallas has but one, a conversion of two tennis courts at Lakeland Hills in East Dallas.
At about the same time, the six-year-old son of Clinton Haley, an infectious disease physician at Baylor, was gifted a scooter. Haley, who lives with his family just outside Junius Heights in District 14, began years of weekend trips to Plano, McKinney, Allen and Garland now familiar to families looking to meet their kid’s interest in sports with a wheel.
Haley’s experiences with others in the skating community led him to found Skateparks for Dallas, an advocacy group for skateparks to be built in the city limits. In 2017, Skateparks for Dallas actively lobbied city and park leadership to include funds for the construction of a skatepark at Bachman Lake in that year’s bond election. Construction on the $4.5 million park began this year and the 46,000 square foot facility will open in 2024.
More advocacy by Skateparks for Dallas led to inclusion of a facility in the early designs of Carpenter Park on the eastern edge of downtown. Disappointed that the final Carpenter Park design omitted a skatepark, Haley re-doubled efforts to educate city leadership about the value of this public amenity.
In the fall of 2020 Haley and District 14 Park Board member Amanda Schulz, now a skatepark supporter of conviction, formed an ad-hoc committee of skatepark community members. Mostly by Covid-induced Zoom meetings, the committee helped educate staff and Park Board members on what other municipalities were doing, characteristics required for a skatepark’s success and how different sizes and designs of skateparks fit budgets and physical limitations.
The short-term goal was to ensure that skateparks got their own masterplan from Park Department staff, a tool that would provide a credible path to more skateparks in the right locations in Dallas. In May of 2021, the Parks Department staff took on masterplans for soft playground surfaces, dog parks and, thanks to a push by Schulz and the skaters, skateparks were to have their own masterplan.
Staff changes at Parks gummed up the machinery and work on the Masterplans fell short of schedule. Two years later the soft surface playground plan was complete, and the dog park plan was close to finished. The skatepark masterplan? Never started.
Haley and Skateparks for Dallas marched forward, building relationships with District 1 Councilmember Chad West and his Park Board appointee JR Huerta, holding demos and fundraisers in Oak Cliff to build awareness and support for an Oak Cliff location.
After Paul Ridley’s election to the City Council in 2021, Schulz transitioned off the Park Board, but not until a get-ya-up-to-speed meeting with Rudy Karimi, Ridley’s appointee to the Board. On the priority list for Schulz was passing the advocacy baton to Karimi for a well-located, purpose-built skatepark.
Fast forward to this fall and the production of a plan for Dallas parks in the 2024 Bond election. Skatepark supporters were thrilled when West and Huerta came out strong for a proposed $1 million facility at Westmoreland Park in Oak Cliff and District 7 Park Board member Daniel Wood helped champion a complete re-do of the existing skatepark at Lakeland Hills. Efforts with Amanda Schulz and Rudy Karimi paid off as well when a $500,000 allocation for a District 14 skatepark in Dallas in Glencoe Park appeared on the 2024 bond wish list.
The convergence of the 2016 level of service recommendations for park amenities, the relentless effort by skatepark advocates and the 2024 Bond election resulted in three new skateparks in the City of Dallas on the Park Department’s this-is-what-we-need checklist.
City-wide public meetings held by the Community Bond Task Force in August and September were the first chance for the public to comment on what the priorities for the 2024 bond should be. Once again, Skateparks for Dallas rallied the troops to support the Parks and Recreation allocation and the inclusion of new skateparks in Westmoreland and Glencoe and a rebuilt one at Lakeland Hills. If there was opposition to the notion of skateparks in Dallas Parks, none appeared.
But if somebody was inclined to oppose a skatepark built in your local park, how would you even know about it? And that’s the rub for some voices in the Glencoe Park and Greenland Hills neighborhoods.
Photo by Sam Gillespie
Teri Ervin, a twenty-five year Greenland Hills resident, first heard of a “specialty park” installation at Glencoe from Councilman Paul Ridley in a Greenland Hills neighborhood meeting in late September. “I was surprised and disappointed in the lack of neighborhood input at the time”, said Roberts.
The “specialty park” was, of course, the proposed skatepark for Glencoe. Two neighborhood meetings around the District 14 parks bond requests were hosted by Karimi in October. Flyers and Facebook posts from Karimi noted meetings on October 2nd at Exall Recreation Center and October 11th at Oak Lawn Branch Library. Although appearing in an August 25th Facebook post from Karimi, most neighbors first heard the details about the Glencoe skatepark at these meetings.
As the opposition became more vocal, neighbors asked Rudy for a meeting restricted to Glencoe Park, Greenland Hills, Vickery Place and other neighborhoods close to Glencoe. Ervin helped hand deliver 1100 flyers to homes in the area encouraging attendance on October 26th at Unity Church. The Advocate was denied access to the gathering. The only details from the meeting are on Karimi’s District 14 Parks Facebook page. A portion of Karimi’s post:
89 citizens attended from the Greenland Hills and Vickery Place neighborhoods. Mostly, if not entirely all white, older adults and senior citizens. Very few young adults were present. No teenagers. A couple parents brought their very young kids.
I started with a show-of-hands. 10 citizens were undecided on the recommendation. Of the rest, 4/5 were opposed to the recommendation, 1/5 were supportive of the recommendation.
Some of the primary comments and complaints were:
Uncertainty of outsiders using the park
Skater stereotype
Lack of communication prior to October
Paving green space
Add pickle ball instead of skatepark
Athletic field maintenance instead of skatepark
On Wednesday, November 1, Karimi hosted his final Glencoe Skatepark meeting, returning to Exall Park not to listen to Game 5 of the World Series, but to the passionate pleas from both sides of the simmering controversy. A diverse crowd of sixty people gathered, and an initial show of hands asked by Karimi seemed to indicate 65% in favor and 35% opposed.
Karimi opened the meeting with a Power Point, summarizing some of the background work of the Park Department and his reasons for supporting the whole idea—current low number of skateparks, size distinctions of different parks, the 6,000 square feet proposed for Glencoe, why one of two Glencoe ballfields can be replaced and access to the Mockingbird DART station.
Karimi brought along two of his Park Board colleagues, JR Huerta from District 1 in Oak Cliff and Daniel Wood from District 7 in far East Dallas. Huerta voiced his strong support for the Westmoreland skate feature proposed in the bond and surprising to him, noted 100% community backing in the meetings he has sponsored.
Wood spoke to his positive experience for the existing skating amenity in Lakeland Hills, community support for the $1 million re-fresh in the bond and his hopes for more skateparks in Dallas proper.
Ted Thompson, twenty-year resident of Greenland Hills, rose first for the opposition. “I am not against skateparks” said Thompson. “Improvements were made to Glencoe from previous bond elections based on the 2002 masterplan in place. This skatepark idea did not come organically from the neighborhood, and it feels like it is being shoved down our throats.”
Also in opposition, Ervin’s experience is that Glencoe is heavily used and often near capacity. In stronger terms she questioned why Rudy and the City are so focused on District 14 as the only alternative for a new skatepark.
“My question, which I have never got a satisfactory answer to, is why Glencoe and why District 14? There are other parks with fewer amenities and more space. Why aren’t they being considered? It just seems a little bit political to me.”
Rudy answered that amenities complement each other, and District 14 is in the center of the City with DART access. “All of the reasons Glencoe is a great park are the reasons Glencoe is a great choice for a skatepark,” said Karimi.
Karimi also addressed concerns about skatepark users coming from outside of the neighborhood noting that the rugby field at Glencoe is one of only two in Dallas and attracts players from all over the metroplex.
A few attendees believed the $500,000 budgeted for the park would be better used to repair streets. Another person voiced that $500,000 could build 8-10 Metrocare units to support affordable housing.
Karimi, Huerta and Wood didn’t argue the merits of those investments, but as Park Board members they are advocating only for Parks in the bond allocation.
A host of skateboard supporters spoke passionately about the community of skateboarding and how the negative image of skaters as thugs is misplaced.
“We have met so many fantastic people skateboarding,” said Brian Harrison who attended with his wife and three children, all skateboarders. “This is one of the few things I have ever seen that brings everybody together—gender, age, race.”
Teenagers stand with their skateboards at a Nov. 29, 2022 neighborhood meeting to show support for the construction of an Oak Cliff skate park. Photo by Emma Ruby.
Others stressed that many kids aren’t suited for team sports and have found skating an inclusive, welcoming community that doesn’t judge. An adult skater found the perseverance of learning tricks helped him learn how to overcome obstacles.
The thumbs-down group emphasized that their issue is not with the community or culture of skateboarders, but mostly with the process of communicating and neighborhood prioritization.
“I apologize to the neighbors who expected more communication during the advocacy and outreach phase,” Karimi said a few days after the meeting. “The park department simply isn’t staffed or resourced in a way to effectively do that at-scale across the thousands of recommendations it had to consider as a part of this process. However you view the process, progress was necessary and a formal set of recommendations needed to be put forward, with the understanding that the required amount of formal community input would occur between October and January.”
Also challenging was the absence of a Friends group like those that exist at Willis Winters Park, Tietze Park, Exall Park, Santa Fe Trail and Katy Trail in District 14. It’s an easier path for communication and dialogue with volunteer groups whose mission is park improvements. Greenland Hills Neighborhood Association is a terrific group of neighbors, but a jewel like Glencoe Park could use an active, dedicated Friends group.
On November 4th, the Community Bond Task Force delivered the final recommendations for the 2024 bond to the Dallas City Council. The Parks and Recreation Department allocation was $350 million out of the $1.1 Billion total and included $500,000 for the Glencoe skatepark. Council debate will occur in December and January vote is anticipated if a May election is to include the bond.
Where is Paul Ridley, Council member for District 14, on the skatepark issue? Ridley didn’t attend the last two meetings with constituents that his Park Board appointee scheduled. The Advocate made several attempts to contact Ridley’s office and received no response.
Will the proposed skatepark at Glencoe Park be on the final list of projects?
