Skate park needs repairs, users say

Brandon Pagarigan and his friends share a camaraderie and love of skateboarding.

But Pagarigan, 16, and others say the park where they skate at Ewa Beach Community Park has fallen into such disrepair that it has become difficult and sometimes impossible to skate safely over holes in the surface and cracks in the ramps.

They are making a plea for help from the community and the city to repave the skate park with concrete and fix the ramps.

An online petition calling for a sturdy concrete surface and requesting help from the community has generated about 1,100 signatures.

“The condition this park is in, I just find schools and other places that we’re not supposed to be in more safe,” said Pagarigan, who spends most of his time after school with his friends at the park. “Not as (many people) know this park because they’re like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know Ewa Beach had a skate park.’ They come here and get disappointed.”

The James Campbell High School sophomore says he met some of his friends through skateboarding.

The skate park, built in 1992 with an asphalt surface, has never been refurbished, according to the city.

The Department of Parks and Recreation has been researching how much it will cost to update the skate park. City officials from the departments of Design and Construction and Facility Maintenance have done a site evaluation and are ready to move forward once the cost has been determined.

City Councilman Ron Menor, who represents the area, said he is working with Campbell students, residents and the city to coordinate a meeting at the park to discuss needed repairs. Menor said he will also consider adding funds in the next fiscal year’s budget for improvements and repairs.

Pagarigan, along with about 30 skateboarders wearing “Save Ewa Beach Skate Park” shirts, packed this month’s Ewa Neighborhood Board meeting to ask for help. Neighborhood board and community members largely offered support for the skateboarders and suggested the possibility of a public-private partnership.

At the meeting, several skateboarders also described the challenges of skating at the park — the cracks in the ramps that can catch the wheels and force them to fall forward, and the loose pebbles and rocks and unsteady ground that make it difficult to push forward and that scratch their hands when they fall.

“We’ve been living with it for a while,” said Josh Galase, a sophomore at Campbell High who was one of several students at the meeting. “Now is the time because the growing skateboarding community in Ewa Beach is getting bigger and bigger every year. I’ve seen it myself.”

Galase added that he hopes the skate park will eventually expand to accommodate more trick areas.

Suzette Galase, Josh’s grandmother, was at the meeting and said the boys need a safe place where they can spend time after school. She added that they sometimes find other places to skate in the area but are told to leave.

“They’re just looking for a place to have fun and not to get into trouble. They’re actually being proactive by trying to keep themselves positive,” said Suzette Galase, who drives the boys to different skate parks around the island on the weekends. “Like they all say, it’s a lifestyle. It’s not just a sport. They bond in that way, even with the other skaters at the other parks. It’s a sense of family.”