The City of Gilroy temporarily closed the skateboard park at Las
Animas Veterans Park, 400 Mantelli Drive, Monday for one week
because of significant profanity-laced graffiti vandalism.
The City of Gilroy temporarily closed the skateboard park at Las Animas Veterans Park, 400 Mantelli Drive, Monday for one week because of significant profanity-laced graffiti vandalism.
The facility will hopefully re-open Dec. 27, according to Chris Weske, senior maintenance for parks and landscape.
“This is the second time we’ve had to close the park down,” Weske said Tuesday. The closing comes when many students are out of school for winter break.
He said graffiti tagging at the skate park occurs frequently, but it’s usually minor vandalism and can be cleaned up the morning after it’s discovered.
This is only the second time the city has had to close the park down for more than a day, Weske said.
City staff will have to go in with a pressure washer and blast the graffiti, he explained, which will probably take a couple of days. And with the holiday, City Hall is short-staffed and closed Thursday and Friday.
Weske said the skate park is only locked by city staff members, who have to clean it, and it is not routinely locked after -hours.
“It’s something that’s been questioned in the past,” he said, regarding why the city doesn’t keep the facility locked at night.
In addition to the fact there’s no designated staff to lock the skate park each night, Weske said it’s difficult to gauge vandalism time trends.
“Even when we were locking the restrooms in the evening,” he said, “they were still being vandalized.”
Weske said occasionally taggers come out in broad daylight and the early mornings.
“I’m hoping to be able to open it up Monday morning,” he said. “Provided nobody gets in there and tags it up again.”
