Staffing added, hours cut, but skate park remains closed

City officials and youth skaters celebrated the re-opening of the skate park in Audie Murphy Ranch in March 2017. File photo

The City of Menifee's struggles to maintain a safe and clean skate park in Audie Murphy Ranch continue, even though the City Council took another stab at addressing the issue Wednesday night.

The council voted unanimously to reduce the skate park hours, assign city staff members to be on site whenever the park is open, and hire six part-time employees to help monitor the facility. The cost of this program through the end of the fiscal year is estimated at $40,000-$50,000, and the plan will be re-evaluated at that time.

One unanswered question was how long the park will be closed. It has been closed since last week for what city staff members called "maintenance", but council member Matt Liesemeyer said during the meeting that the closure was actually at his request after a boy was assaulted near the park.

City manager Armando Villa told Menifee 24/7 after the meeting that some maintenance is being performed, primarily to repair parts of the structure that have been damaged. Liesemeyer, who represents that district on the City Council, said that is only part of the story, however.

Liesemeyer said he receives complaints daily from residents about the skate park, and the latest incident "was the last straw." He said a boy who was seen shooting video of inappropriate behavior at the park was followed a few blocks from the park by a male who punched him and stole his cell phone.


"When the Community Services Department hosts other events in the city, they are there to staff them," said Mayor Pro Tem Lesa Sobek. "This is a program that is going on in the city. We need to staff it."

First opened in May 2014 at the Audie Murphy Ranch Sports Park on the west side of town, the skate park has been the source of controversy almost since the beginning. Complaints by residents of drug and alcohol use by young adults in and around the park and a general disregard for park rules resulted in a four-month closure beginning in November 2016. Extra fencing and the installation of security cameras were in place when the park was re-opened in March 2017.

Since then, new and improved surveillance cameras were installed when the original cameras were found to have connectivity problems. And the hiring of two park rangers to help monitor the park has had little positive effect, city officials admitted Wednesday.

In the past, city officials have been reluctant to place supervisors at the park because of liability issues. If the park is not supervised, they say, users do so at their own risk, just as visitors to any public park would do. Repeated incidents and complaints about safety around the park prompted the Community Services Department to be more far-reaching in three options they presented to the City Council Wednesday to address the issue, however.

One option included hiring an outside company to manage the park, including staffing a snack and equipment shop on site. The cost quoted by a company that bid previously for this job is $200,000 per year, the most expensive of the three options.

The second option included staffing the park at all times, using two-part time city employees and six part-time staff members to help cover the shifts. Annual cost of that plan was estimated at $130,000.

The third option, which was ultimately approved by council, was to use the same staffing numbers as the second option, but to reduce the park hours. Under this plan, the park will not open until 3 p.m. and will close by 8 p.m. during the week, with extended hours on the weekend. The plan includes a membership program with registration of park users, with fees set at $10 per year for Menifee residents and $100 annually for non-residents.

The higher non-resident fee was designed to discourage use of the park by young adults coming from other areas. City officials believe such individuals are a big part of the problem.

Liesemeyer, who made the motion that was approved, expressed disappointment with the way the hiring of two park rangers has been handled. The rangers are tasked with monitoring all parks and are at the skate park much less than 50 percent of the time, said Jason Hendrix, community services supervisor.

Community Services Director Jonathan Nicks also told council members that one of the two rangers resigned two months ago and nothing has been done to fill his position. In addition, the one park ranger on staff is not always available to work weekends because of Coast Guard duty.

Perhaps the biggest issue with the park rangers is their lack of authority to enforce the rules. According to Nicks and Hendrix, skaters usually run away or say they have no ID on them when the ranger attempts to cite them for infractions.

"I'm not convinced we've done all we said we would do," Liesemeyer said, referring to the plan for the park rangers. "I think the rangers' classification should be bumped up. They're not carrying enough weight. And now we're hearing that the second ranger left two months ago and the position hasn't been filled.

"We continue to throw money at the park. We put up fences and more fences, cameras and new cameras. Before one of these options goes into effect, we need to look at the ranger program."

Villa said it will take some time to finish park maintenance and develop a staffing plan. Meanwhile, the park remains closed. Even then, the problem of vandalism remains. Liesemeyer said he is aware of several occasions when young people climb over the fence to get into the park after hours.

"Shutting the gate doesn't stop anything," he said. "They just jump the fence. If we monitor the park, how can we truly lock it down when it's closed?"