HBHS PTSA LETTER UPDATE
Here are two letters that ending up in our email. They are responses from a city council member and a HB police officer to the recent letter the Huntington Beach High School PTSA is distributing about the new Huntington Beach Skatepark.
I have received your email regarding concerns about a skate park in Huntington Beach. You may have recently received an email from members of the Huntington Beach High School PTSA. In this email there were many unsubstantiated allegations about our experience with skate parks in the city. In fact, we never had any significant problems with the decade-plus long history at Huntington Beach High School. Allegations of problems only manifested when the the school district was ready to move forward with the construction of the new football stadium and track. It was clear the the skate park not going to mesh well with the new stadium design. Needless to say, my council colleagues found the timing of the concerns interestingly connected to final construction plans of the stadium. I thought I might share with you an email sent to to Ms. Wait-Huber who was one of the first to circulate an email that contained many inaccuracies. As an officer of the PTSA, I found the email both inflammatory and irresponsible. The protection of our children is a priority for the council and to assert otherwise is simply poor judgment. Below is the email response from our police department with the facts. I hope you find it informative.
Don Hansen Councilmember City of Huntington Beach
The letter below is from a HBPD Officer regarding the same letter from HBHS.
Ms. Wait-Huber –
I am a captain with the Huntington Beach Police Department. I would like to respond to your email to clarify some of your statements.
With regards to the skate park at Huntington Beach High School, there were a total of 15 police calls for service in all of 2007 and only three in 2008 (the park closed after August of 2008). These calls include investigation of stolen property, disturbances, cooking food at the park, object thrown at a passing vehicle on Main Street, misdemeanor assaults, petty thefts, homeless man sleeping at park at midnight, two illegal drugs calls (not confirmed), vandalism, and drunk in public. There were no serious injuries from any of these incidents and the calls regarding stolen property and drugs were not confirmed when the officers arrived.
With regards to the skate park at Murdy Park (Golden West and Warner area), there were only 13 calls for service in 2007, 25 in 2008 and only six calls for police service in all of 2009. In 2009, there were 243 calls for the rest of the park (recreation center, athletic fields, and BBQ areas) for the same time period. These calls include misdemeanor assault, runaway juvenile, robbery of a skateboard, juveniles fighting, possible intoxicated homeless man, rope hung from a nearby tree that was a possible hazard, juveniles smoking cigarettes, and 11-year old boy injured when falling from his skateboard.
If there has been additional incidents discovered by the School staff they have not been reported to the Police Department. Considering the positive relationship the Police Department enjoys with the schools in the City, I believe the number of possible unreported incidents is fairly low.
The number of calls for service for these locations is considerably low compared to other areas of the city where juveniles frequent. If there have been other public safety incidents at these locations they were not reported to the Police Department. I do not believe either of the skate parks have been the source “tremendous” problems as you have stated. I understand one other citizen recently reported that a death occurred at the High School skate park a number of years ago. This is not true.
The Police Department has not taken a “hands-off approach to the park” as you wrote. All calls for service are responded to as quickly as possible and a thorough investigation is completed as is appropriate for each incident. Also, officers routinely patrol the areas of each park and take enforcement action as deemed necessary.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like to discuss this further.
Thank you,
Chuck Thomas
Huntington Beach Police Department
(714) 536-5910