At one point the Cambria Community Services District general manager said he was all for building a new skate park in town to replace the one that was demolished. But looks like Matthew McElhenie may have changed his mind.
McElhenie and the CSD helped Skate Cambria apply for and receive a California State Parks grant in 2023 to construct a place for the kids to skate, but this past March he seemed ready to give it all away. Guess why?
Construction estimates changed. Duh. They always change. It’s called an estimate!
The county is requiring bathrooms. Lame! Can’t skaters just go behind a bush? PG&E needs to run electricity to the place. Lame! Can’t skaters just wear headlamps? None of this is new information, but still, Skate Cambria is $80,000 short of what’s needed. And apparently the general manager who once said that the skate park was “vital mental, physical, and social health of our youth” got cold feet.
At the CSD’s March 13 meeting, McElhenie thought the skate park could be moved—which would mean the years-long effort would have to give back the grant and start from scratch—to save money or scrapped altogether. “Wave the white flag,” he said.
So, how do you think that went over?
Not good.
“I know that’s not popular,” McElhenie said. “I’m trying to be fiscally responsible.”
The project has managed to raise more than $1 million!
Ever-vigilant Cambria resident Tina Dickason wore a scarf featuring The Scream instead of actually screaming at the board. She said if the CSD did anything other than approve the skate park’s planned Main Street location, it would “leave you all with the most disgusting and horrible legacy that I think this town would probably have ever seen.”
Seems a bit dramatic, even for Dickason.
I think the “disgusting and horrible legacy” that will overshadow the town until it gets a permit is, in fact, the water facility that was built and can’t really legally operate. And it might never get that permit.
Many speakers demanded the skate park remain on Main Street, and Skate Cambria Project Manager Juli Amodei had some choice words about the whole show and what she alleged was a last-minute excuse about PG&E pricing.
“What took place … was about finding a way to get rid of it,” she said. “All of a sudden, this whole narrative started taking place. … So, we keep hearing there’s a gap, there’s a gap, and then no word of any electricity for five years.”
McElhenie flexed his muscles in response to the accusations: “If the district wanted to stop the project, it would have done that,” he said. “We would not need to come up with a location change to do that.”
Shots fired! And he’s probably right. But, CSD board members listened to their community and kept things on their current trajectory. And that elected body isn’t the only one listening to their constituents. We’ve got a trend in North County!
What’s up with that?
The Atascadero Unified School District heard parents and teachers who complained about the school board’s first pick to replace retiring Superintendent Tom Butler—Assistant Superintendent E.J. Rossi. The school board was accused of a lack of due diligence for choosing a candidate who has a history of money mismanagement allegations from a previous employer. Not cool!
At the school board’s April 1 meeting, the board chose to hire Tom Bennett instead. The district’s $25,000 recruiting consultant who initially helped point in Rossi’s direction fawned all over the board. He gushed about district leadership and the way the board worked through the process.
“Despite difference of opinions from time to time,” consultant Bill Banning said. “You stayed focused on what matters most, the future of AUSD and the students you serve. That’s what good governance looks like.”
Banning said the firm determined Bennett most fit for the job (Second most fit, actually!) due to “strong leadership experience.”
Banning is all about leadership. And the board lapped up the commendations, heaping praise on him as well. Sheesh! Get a room!
I would say that the whole hullabaloo that happened in March over Rossi could have been avoided if everyone had done their job right the first time—leadership and all.
But, the board listened to the public that it serves, and that’s saying something! Isn’t it?
Paso Robles Joint Unified School District‘s school board also listened to parents when it finally made a decision about renovating Georgia Brown Dual Immersion School. That’s a school board that doesn’t have a great track record for hearing all residents, but maybe things are changing. The whole Georgia Brown process has kept the public very involved and this remodeling project is no different.
The public spoke and the board listened. I do, however have one question. Do we really want eighth graders and first graders sharing bathrooms? We don’t. Those are very different age groups. Seemed like a minor inconvenience for the board—the same board that was very perturbed about transgender bathroom use.
I’m just going to leave that one right there.
Can this sort of behavior from elected officials trickle up for once? I’m sick of trickle down. We need a federal government that also listens to its constituents—all of them. Δ
The Shredder is always a little perturbed about the feds. Send solace to shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Apr 3-13, 2025.
It seems to me that an $80K cost overrun is nothing compared to the overall price of the project. It will be far more than that once completed. Do we really need a $6million skate park.
Tony:
Yes, we need a skate park but not at $6,000,000. This is total, smalltown grift. I would suggest someone look up the primary developer or CEO and compare it to the open records of campaign contributions to public officials or political parties involved in this deal. Who said Tammany Hall died a long time ago? It wouldn’t surprise me if you see their name(s). These two options are helpful: http://muckrock.com or http://opensecrets.org.
I guess both parties could be summed up as thus:
Democrats: Party of printing, spending, and borrowing
.
Republicans: Party of not printing.
Stopping the print, borrowing, and spending has shown just how fake our economy is.
Reminds me of life of Roy Cohen, he went to his deathbed, dying of Acquired Immune Deficiency, swearing up and down he wasn’t of a certain sexual persuasion. That’s our economy, liberals swearing up and down nothing is wrong with our economy yet, when the music stopped when the current administration took over, it all falls apart. They swear all we need is more of their policy, more debt and the wasted lives of entire generations.
Does anyone relish watching the extremely modest savings, pensions, and investments of Americans go down in flames? Absolutely not, but whether it was sudden as it is now or relatively slower under a Democratic party regime, matters little. It was going to happen either way. Let’s just get it over with and do so as adults, the future of succeeding generations is at stake.
One solution would to begin aggressively taxing the rich, balancing our budget, and slashing defense spending by 75%. Basically, let’s nationalize everything and redistribute concentrated wealth.
The impediment is Congress. They vote their class interest or aspiring class interest which, for us, the downtrodden, diverges sharply from ours. They are masters of rhetoric and like Jim Jones, have persuaded many that cutting off our noses to spite our faces is in our best interest. Entire swaths of America are convinced that with enough positive thinking and vibes, recovery is just around the corner. It isn’t. There will be no recovery, only class war and civil war.