How to advocate for a skatepark in your city
The Boneyard Skatepark at Rick Oden Park had its official grand opening on October 22, 2022. As skatepark advocates, seeing new skateparks open is exhilarating, but what was special on this day was the truly MASSIVE turnout from the DFW action sports community at the grand opening itself. The skatepark itself is enormous, and the crowd numbered at least several hundred, so it would have taken a drone fly-over to actually capture the magnitude of the enthusiasm for the new skatepark.
Garland Mayor Scott LeMay with Clinton Haley, leader of Skateparks for Dallas.org & Paul Field
The skatepark at Rick Oden Park is part of a major overhaul for this centrally located park, which will include many family friendly amenities including walking trails, a food truck park, a permanent restroom and a tournament-sized baseball facility. The skatepark itself is 46,000 square feet, making it the second largest skatepark in Texas, with both beginner and experienced skater areas.
The Mayor of Garland, Scott LeMay and former District 5 City Council Member Rich Aubin both highlighted in their speeches how important the DFW action sports community was in seeing this skatepark come to fruition at the scale that it did. There were times during the debate that Garland was considering making a smaller “skate spot”, but for a city without a skatepark that would have been a huge miss. But each city leader and the many in attendance all highlighted how important action sports enthusiasts showing up at their meeting was to convince them that the bigger park is what the community wanted.
If we were to summarize how to advocate for a skatepark in your city in three steps, they would be
Build relationships
Find opportunities to engage
Show up when it matters
Building relationships means getting to know the real city officials who are open to hearing from the community. Approach them in a friendly and open manner and remember they are influential, but they cannot just snap their fingers and make the skatepark of your dreams a reality. They need our support as much as we need theirs. Also get to know the skaters and riders in your area, and get connected. SP4D works hard to play this role but there is always room for more enthusiastic support. Join our email list!
Finding opportunities to engage means paying attention to the city and parks & rec meetings and seeing when something skatepark related may be on the agenda. This is where following the city on social media pays off, but also where those relationships pay off. The city official may suggest a meeting is coming up and if you attend you may get to speak about new facilities.
Showing up when it matters is ultimately where the positive momentum gets built. A relatively small number of public meetings occur about any one topic in a city, and if you show up on that day your voice and presence is a very significant signal that the community cares, and this is what the Mayor of Garland meant when he spoke about the DFW action sports community at the grand opening.
As nice as 1-2-3 instructions are, we know that a tremendous success like the Garland skatepark does not happen linearly in a short amount of time. Skateparks for Dallas has been following along on this journey for a while and it’s worthwhile to look back at a quick summary of that history now as we look ahead to our continued skatepark advocacy in Dallas.
In 2018, we interviewed Garland’s own Elijah Moore Jr in Downtown Garland about his decades of skatepark advocacy and provides the start of the story that we have now seen the successful conclusion of.
2004 - original bond election funding a skatepark in Garland
2007 - Elijah speaks at Garland city council continuing to advocate for the park
2018 - Garland City Council Member Rich Aubin is rallying support for the skatepark to be built in his district
April 2019 - City of Garland hosts a skatepark design input meeting with SPA Skateparks. This meeting ended up being instrumental in supporting the park we see today because of how many supporters attended. See our article about it here
May 4, 2019 - Garland Bond Election passes, including additional skatepark funding
November 6, 2019 - Garland Park Board meeting
November 18, 2019 - Garland City Council Work Session
November 19, 2019 - Garland City Council Regular meeting
At each of these meetings, Garland and DFW skaters attended, including in Ribs Man tees to advocate for a park. The skaters who attended were the difference between $1M and $2M being spent to build the park, and they got the full amount. Here are some of our posts.
Summer & Fall 2021 - SPA and NewLine Skateparks are building the park
October 22, 2022 - Garland skatepark opens, 46,000 square feet! The best possible evidence that the efforts of those skaters and riders mattered a great deal.