City-OUSD Skate Park Meeting Stalls
Long-awaited summit canceled as city objects to OUSD attendee
By Daryl Kelley
So much for the skate park summit.
Leaders from the city of Ojai and the Ojai Unified School District were set to meet Thursday to work out differences about a new city-run skateboard park on school property in downtown Ojai.
Instead, city officials took umbrage to the proposed presence of an extra school official, and the School District refused to withdraw the extra official, so the meeting was canceled.
So, as next Tuesday’s skate park showdown before the City Council approaches, relations between the two most prominent local elected bodies may have worsened, heightening the chance of a legal battle rather than prompt construction of a new skate facility.
The City Council has set a public hearing for Aug. 11 to consider the Ojai Unified School District’s appeal of the city Planning Commission’s approval of the skate park’s design. The city has leased the skate park site from the district until 2023.
Thursday’s canceled meeting was the latest twist in a lengthy campaign for a permanent $350,000 skate park to replace a tattered wooden facility in the downtown area near Chaparral Auditorium.
“I am flabbergasted,” said interim school superintendent Jim Berube. “This is shocking to us … I was with the School District for 33 years and spent $30 million in bond money building facilities, and I have never seen anything like this.”
Berube’s counterpart, city manager Jere Kersnar, said he could only confirm that the Thursday afternoon meeting between him and Berube, two council members and two school board trustees had been canceled.
“That’s all I can say,” Kersnar said.
But Berube said the meeting was canceled because Councilwoman Carol Smith didn’t want Dannielle Pusatere, assistant superintendent, to attend.
Berube, who is retired and filling in until a new superintendent arrives next week, said he wanted Pusatere at the meeting to provide continuity to skate park discussions and to answer city questions. “She’s the resource for our board members on this issue,” he said.
But Smith said it was the School District that changed the script for the meeting, and that Pusatere’s presence was not part of the agreement.
“We saw the meeting as looking at the big picture by elected officials by both organizations,” Smith said. “But they wanted an employee to be present. I said this is about where we as a city and the School District want this property to go. I wanted to know where this property was going to go in the next five to 10 years.”
The skate park site is part of a much larger School District property that includes OUSD headquarters. Because of its prime location on Ojai Avenue, the property has development potential far beyond a skate park, but possibly including it.
Of the Thursday meeting, Smith said she thought it would be “off the record” and between only council and school board members and the agencies’ chief executives. That was complicated by the presence of another person, especially since the Skate Ojai group that had spearheaded the skate park campaign had been excluded, she said.
After back-and-forth communications between Berube and Kersnar over a couple of days, Smith said she called Berube herself on Wednesday evening to make her point. She also called school trustees Steve Fields and Linda Taylor, the two school board members who would have attended the meeting.
Fields said he’d been laying the groundwork for the summit for six months by asking Mayor Joe DeVito to set it up.
“We were all prepared and anxious to begin a constructive dialogue,” Fields said. “I’m disappointed they didn’t want to come and talk with us.”
But Smith said she thought the meeting was supposed to look at broader issues, not the details of skate park design and operation and that Pusatere’s presence was not needed.
“I thought I was more than clear,” Smith said, “and they refused.”
Berube said that Kersnar got back to him on Thursday morning to cancel the meeting, saying that neither Smith nor a second council representative, Betsy Clapp, wanted to have the meeting under the changed format.
The school board members were not willing to pull Pusatere out of the meeting, he said. “Our two board members said absolutely not. She is the director of facilities. She is liable,” he said. “Maybe I should have stepped out … but our members felt this was what we should do.”
Fields and Taylor asked Berube to call Kersnar back and try again, Berube said.
“Jere said the city had answered all of the questions the School District has on the skate park or was in the process of resolving them,” Berube said.
“I said, ‘Jere, that’s not accurate. That’s why the School District filed an appeal.’ My board members are having trouble understanding when our concerns have been addressed. We have about 15 questions we want to ask them.”
OUSD has balked at allowing construction of a new, permanent structure without its approval of design and construction plans, as officials insist is required by the district’s lease with the city. The School District hasn’t approved those plans, or even received them, it maintains.
The School District has also expressed concerns about the level of maintenance and adult supervision at the current wooden skate park, and the lack of a rest room and drinking fountain.
School officials said that the state must also sign off on the design of any permanent construction on School District land.
Smith said she didn’t see the canceled meeting as a setback.
“Not as I see it,” she said. “Whatever the school board does, we have our own time line … We’re hoping for it to be a collaborative effort, but we’re proceeding. It’s so weird: why would they want a piece-of-junk skateboard park when everybody else wants a beautiful new in-ground park. It’s nuts. I don’t see the logic.”
But Fields said Thursday’s missed meeting didn’t help.
“We’re concerned that they’ve behaved the way they have,” he said.
George,
Excellent, well-thought comment, a comment meriting a high level of praise nothing short of pure genius. I even like the misspelling of N.S.’s name; a trick from my own bag. I will see you at the next Mensa meeting.
Anon.5
Nicolaus Sommer reminds me of Donald Sutherland in the last frame of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’, only instead of screaching he’s wide eyed , pointing with his finger while looking down his nose and saying, “LOWWWW LIIIIGHT”
I have a problem with Nicks punctuation on Aug 12, 09 at 3:40 PM . He says “you are an personalized intellectual insult and racist!” It should read you are a personalized intellectual insult and racist!” That kind of punctuation error shows an awful low light in that brain of yours Niko. It’s not just a tired, who cares if I spell characters wrong kind of error, it’s sort of a , I’m trying as hard as I can to make sure my punctuation is perfect so as not to look like a hypocrite , but failing miserably anyway kind of error. The other problem I have with Niko is the racist part, where on that comment is any hatred directed toward a persons race? Sounds like you are trying to start something. Why don’t you calm down a notch?
Nicolas summer, you really are tilting at windmills with your comments, I mean where on Earth is this racist you speak of? Spelling errors, I can’t find any! You really suck Nico , Anon. 5 RULZ
Right on look who is calling the kettle!
I have questions about Nick’s comma placement, his capitalization of the word “tennis” and his use of the word “right,” when “correctly” is correct. And don’t get me started on starting a sentence with “And.”
A permanent skate park with adequate supervision and parental involvement will make for more sober (and perhaps clean-shaven) youth.
George,
Thank you for your support. I am glad somebody gets my sense of humor.
Anon.5
pot meet kettle,
Just in case you have smoked too much pot again, allow me to explain: (Characters / Charactors) is a low light spelling error, not to mix up with typos caused by fast typing on old keyboards
I saw the other day a kid text messaging while on the skateboard (in the parking lot) kind of cool.
BTW there is a whole new language out there, it’s called SMS …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_language
http://www.smsdictionary.co.uk/abbreviations
Good example what happens, when a government is regulating against the people in order to please some intellectual red necks with money.
Skate Park:
Somebody with facial hair is looking questionable??
I believe you are an personalized intellectual insult and racist! Your posting is nothing else than talking about your self.
Anon.5:
You are digging at the wrong place. Please leave the sportive active youth alone.
I want to see the birth certificates of every one of the council and school board members…Just what are they hiding?
Haha Anon.5 has actually been cracking me up lately, like the comment about Bush’s tax cuts for the obscenely wealthy.
If you build it they will come: The drug dealers, petty criminals, and insubordinate youth.
Build a new skatepark! It’s insane how judgmental people can be of skateboarders. Anon.5 doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. He labelling all the children at the skatepark, even though he’s probably never been there!
Parents need to be able to leave their teens alone during the day and trust them not to get into trouble. To Nicolaus Sommer , do you really care that much about spelling errors because you mess up occasionally too. In fact having read your opinions for quite some time, I have noticed that you are the one who is constantly talking down to others on these blogs, using degrading terminology and insulting others intelligence. Its quite common for people with low self-esteem to make fun of others in such a manner because it builds up their own image of themselves to put others down.
There is nothing wrong with saying that I saw someone who looked questionable at the skate park with facial hair and tattoos not to mention some other features I felt seemed a little unsavory for kids… then I also said , well that seems to be the norm these days~ so what.
come ON Nick; you’ve had plenty of grammar/spelling/punctuation errors on these pages!
a permanent skate park with adequate supervision and parental involvement will make for more sober youth.
Any news about the city council meeting last night?
I feel that people who can not even spell right (Characters and not Charactors) should not look down on others.
This town is not doing much for young people, except offering Tennis opportunities … and I strongly believe that needs to be changed.
Anon.5:
Sorry, but you are completely out of line with your statement. Yes, some kids have a drug problem … but to say “…skate park for the drug-infested youth” is simply not fair towards the majority who is not having a drug problem. And living in a town where the youth is NOT having a voice, is frustrating and accelerating youth problems.
No, they had skateboards, but they were definetly older than 18 , lots of tattoos and facial hair. Oh well, lots of children get tattoos these days,,, don’t they? No big deal…
You have got to be kidding me. “Charactors hanging around the skate park”. What kind of Charactors?
Since it’s a skate park and mainly children go there, did you call the police?
I agree with Anon.5. Some of the charactors I’ve seen hanging around there are not too savory.
Who from the school district will be there tonight at the city council meeting? Steve Fields, Linda Taylor, Danielle Pusatere, Jim Berube? Please have a representative at the meeting.
Problem: Bickering over a stupid skate park for the drug-infested youth.
Solution: Don’t build it.
“transparency” why would the school district want to exclude Skate Ojai from the meeting? All the elected officials are trying to cover their butts if this thing goes bad.
why is it a good idea to exclude anyone from a meeting? particularly the one person who knows what’s going on?
So how much money has been spent and what did the city spend it on?
I also want everyone to remember that the council made two motions last week at the city council meeting.
#1 To have a timeline by Thursday, August 6th.
#2 Joint Meeting scheduled between City Staff and Skate Ojai plus one or two council members.
Nothing happened!
So why do we make a motion at the city council meetings any way?
How do you build something with out a time line? Anyone in business knows you have to have a time line for even a simple project.
What is the project manager doing from Community Works? Has the city asked him to do anything about the skate park? The city hired them?
Oh yeah, Skate Ojai hasn’t spent a penny. All the donations are sitting in the bank. The city is using the money from the $100,000 they put aside for the skate park.
Come to the city council and ask your own questions.
See you then.
I’m glad Carol and Betsy stayed strong and didn’t let Danielle join the meeting. The idea was not to have a ton of people in the meeting, keep it simple and discuss the issues.
They need to stay true to the original group for the meeting.
If they are going to bring Danielle to the meeting then a member of Skate Ojai needs to be at the meeting! I can almost bet that they threw Danielle in it knowing that the city council would say no, so it would look like the city council didn’t want it to happen.
Nice try.
The Special Meeting is at City Hall starting at 7:30. Tuesday August 11th.
Everyone is welcome since it’s a public meeting.
See you then.
Does anybody know what time the meeting is tomorrow?
Skate Ojai has spent money on site design at the current skate park location. Have the school district pay for those costs and then break the lease with the city.
If the owner of the bowling alley agrees to have the skatepark on her property , maybe we should crown her Mayor of Ojai for solving the problem in a way that pleases everyone! Either that or keep it where it is and just improve it. That is my number one vote, to keep it where it is. Number two, well , number two is speculation only.
The skate park has been at the current location for the last 8 years? So what is the problem? Why try to move it now?
It’s just easier to refer to a comment if it would carry a “unique” name … has nothing to do being “brave” …
Never mind, and sorry, my intention was not to start an “old” discussion again.
William Santee:
The future bowling alley will be like the old one a private business and is not on City property. Maybe the new owner is interested making a “deal” with the skateboarders … however, I feel the bowling alley is pretty far east for skateboarders who living on the west end of town … maybe the Trolley Bus can solve this problem …
Anyways, the OUSD board must be pretty happy that their tactics kicking in successfully and people in Ojai start discussing alternative locations …
Again, the Bowling Alley property does not belong to the city and the process would start all over again.Put it on city property where it belongs!
Not back to the cowardly anonymous moniker discussion again? Nicolaus Sommer, I have never heard of you and your real name might be something else for all I know and it dosen’t make you seem more ‘brave’ to use a proper name. The bowling alley location would be good because its on the main drag, its easy for the police to drive by and check on it without getting out of their cars and it will also bring more business to the bowling alley if it should open.
I think most bloggers look at the quality of the comments, not the posted name. If you have something to contribute in a cogent manner you will be read.
If you can’t post under your real name (kind of cowardly) then please be creative regarding your fake name and stick to it. It’s pretty pointless to discuss with 20 different “anonymous”
Thank you!
move skate site to the bowling alley ,school dist can,t run its own show.down town needs parking , or city should buy school prop move city ops to there,sell present location .skate park settled
I am pretty sure the meeting this Tues. is open to the public. That is what Joe DeVito told me anyway.
easy to point fingers behind anonymous monikers! daryl uncovered quite a story here. sounds like both sides need to be more transparent, open and amenable.
Jim why don’t you print the 15 questions for the City in the paper and make it public? We have the right to know. What are you hiding in closed door meetings?
Actually Rikki Horns husband is the shill, he shows up at the council meetings as a private citizen- right not as Mister rikki Horne.
Pusatere has made all of the financial decisions for the school district for the last 7 years. She is not an elected official and there has been no oversight or accountability. Tim Baird was a shill. He had very little knowledge of the budget and relied on Pusatere for all the financial decisions.
Open and public meetings, anyone?
The School District only needs Jim Berube, Rikki Horne, and Kathi Smith at the meeting with the city. Those 3 individuals know where all the bodies are buried.
Why does the OUSD need to have Dannielle Pusatere at the meeting? It makes no sense. The school board members should be able to handle a simple meeting with the other elected city officials.
Smith and Clapp “looking at broader issues” does not help the park project. On the contrary. “Off the record”? Since when is that acceptable from elected reps?
Jim OVERSPENT on those bonds. Make the meeting, stack the deck change the rules. Sounds like the school for you, how are they going to get public support to re-zone that property to develope the 75,000 square monster housing, sales and office project? We need a NEW school board! By the way JIM put on the blog how much money the new super will make in retirement for only working 4 years.
nice work, Daryl, thanks for bringing this out in the open