The city wasn't quite prepared for the throng of skaters at the newly opened skate park.
Since the onslaught of skaters sans helmets hit, city officials are in a quandary. Helmets, knee and elbow pads are required to use the park. But making sure kids use the safety equipment is difficult to enforce without staff devoted to the 16,000-square-foot park, which is located at the Centennial Recreation Center and, since opening June 27, has seen an estimated 50 to 100 users each day.
"We've tried several different things. We've closed it to everyone, even those with helmets. We're now just kicking out the people who aren't wearing the equipment. That's worked, but they just come back," Recreation Manager Chris Ghione said.
If most of the users don't have gear, though, they'll close the park to all users for two hours, he said. But when the park is open again, the users come back, helmets or not.
The skaters say they just don't want to wear a helmet. With temperatures peaking in the mid-90s this week, it's too hot. Helmets make them skate worse by limiting their visibility and throwing off their balance, they say. And, the older, 13- and 14-year-old skaters say they know how to fall. And, there have been no injuries so far, they say.
"When you fall, you mainly slide and get right back up," Daniel Stanco, 14, said. "You know how to not hit your head."
Eighteen-year-old Matthew Dokter's head trauma after his April spill at the park was a fluke, a mistake Dokter made, the skaters said. Dokter trespassed into the unopened park and was hospitalized.
It's concerns about injuries like these, and the city's liability, that have officials worried. Ghione said that skate parks fall under the state's health and safety code, which provides limited immunity from liability only if cities meet certain rules, such as requiring safety gear.
Nationwide, there are 50,000 emergency room visits and 1,500 children and adolescents hospitalized with skateboarding injuries each year, according to the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons. Sixty percent of the injuries involve children younger than 15, and are mostly caused by inexperienced skaters and those without protective equipment, according to the association's Web site.
Other main causes include skating near traffic or using homemade skateboard ramps, which is in part what the city is trying to avoid by having a skate park in the first place.
During Wednesday night's council meeting, Councilman Greg Sellers asked that the matter be discussed at a future council meeting. He noted that, as with the other recreation services the city provides, the skate park partially serves as crime prevention.
This has been an ongoing discussion at city hall, with Councilwoman Marby Lee voting against approval of the skate park in April 2008 because it wasn't clear how regulation would be paid for once the park opened. Lee said paying for staff is going to be a challenge, but there's enough concern emanating from the skate park that it warrants a staffing discussion now.
In the past, the council has generally resisted staffing the park because of the expense and the assumption that it would deter the skater crowd from using the park.
Other city skate parks are handled a variety of ways. Campbell and Santa Clara's skate parks are supervised.
But Gilroy and Hollister's skate parks are not. Ghione noted that regardless of their ability to enforce their rules, all California cities with skate parks agree that helmets are necessary.
One measure that has made an impact is ticketing. The Morgan Hill Police Department has an officer stopping by once a day, doling out tickets that start at $100 for the first offense, and go up to $500 for the third. Morgan Hill Police Cmdr. Joe Sampson said they have issued 11 citations for skate park code violations.
It's had an effect, but not the intended one, Mejia said. There aren't more skaters with helmets, there are just fewer skaters visiting the park, she said.
"We'll just go skate behind buildings," Stanco, 14, said. "The city's the one that spent ($600,000) on this park. If they want to close it, it's their loss."
The skaters had a seemingly simple solution. Have everyone sign a waiver. If they don't wear a helmet, the city won't be held liable for any injuries, they reasoned.
Ghione said that's not an easy fix. For a waiver to work, the city would have to have someone there to make sure all the users without safety equipment had signed a waiver. And, as with the helmet enforcement rule, there's no manpower for that.
There was hope that the park users would self-regulate: the ones with helmets would implore the ones without to put gear on. But that hasn't really happened.
Eleven-year-old helmet-wearing Matt Adamkiewicz said he's talked to other skaters without helmets about wearing them for safety, but they haven't really listened. Like other law-abiding skate park users, he said he's annoyed when others who aren't wearing the equipment ruin the experience for everyone.
Recreation program coordinator Chiquy Mejia said the skate park has brought a different crowd to the center, with a new crop of issues from skating outside the park to smoking on the grounds.
"It's a different community, with a lot of strong personalities," Mejia said.
Ghione said the city is focusing on getting adult skaters - the 18- to 30-year-olds - to set an example for the younger ones.
Justin Yannone, 34, of Aromas, visited the park for the first time Tuesday afternoon. He was decked out in full safety gear: helmet, elbow pads and knee pads.
"I'm just wearing these to avoid financial ruin," Yannone said, referring to the high cost of health care if he were injured. "It just makes sense. I drive safely because I don't want to crash my car. It's the same thing. I just gotta be careful."
Were the half dozen skaters gathered round Yannone convinced?
"No," they said, in unison. Nothing will make them wear helmets, they said, although some kept helmets in their backpacks or along the fencing - just in case a police officer showed up and started ticketing.
Yannone chuckled at their defiance.
"When I was younger, I wasn't as smart. It's hard to teach people. I was the same way," he said.
Skateboarding Accidents: By the Numbers
51,000: Skating injuries in 1999
38: Percent that were of the ankle, wrist and face
5: Percent that were severe, concussions or internal injuries
31: Percent that were moderate, fractures and dislocations
1,500: Injuries requiring hospitalization, usu. head trauma, in 1997.
Source: American Academy of Pediatrics
Natalie Everett
Natalie Everett Natalie Everett is the education and city reporter for The Times. Reach her at (408) 779-4106, ext. 201, or neverett@morganhilltimes.com.
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