Projects

McGregor Park

The project, budgeted at $300,000, opened, with 500 people in attendance, according to Tricia Proctor, who teamed up with her friend Marie Martorella and county parks chief Jeff Gaffney, to make it happen.

Here’s how it got started: Rebele called Novak about kids skateboarding in the parking lot at the Episcopal Church of Saint John the Baptist. Novak, who lives in Capitola, told him the kids needed a place to skateboard.

The plan for Seacliff Village Park, which is across the street from the church, included a skate feature, but it had not been built. A year ago, Proctor and Martorella got a call from Gaffney.

The two moms, both with skateboarding children, had tried in vain to persuade the Capitola City Council to approve a skate park funded by Novak for beginning and intermediate skaters at Monterey Park next to New Brighton Middle School. Instead, the council backed a city initiative for a skate park on McGregor Drive, which opened in 2015.

With Gaffney’s interest, Proctor connected with Mariah Roberts and Terry Corwin of the Friends of Santa Cruz County Parks, then reconnected with Dreamland Skate Parks in Lincoln City, Ore., which had come up with a design for Capitola.

“They came down and saw the (Seacliff) site and said ‘We’re in,”’ Proctor said.

“In a nutshell, and consistent with my experience in business and leading the Land Trust for 10 years, when you have leaders who trust each other, everything becomes possible,” said Corwin. “That is the case here, with leaders in government, private sector and a non profit (County Park Friends), all working in partnership and in good faith to get this project done.”

Deborah Bredy, who took over Bredy Construction in Santa Cruz after her husband Mike died in 2018, built the skate park.

Construction took seven weeks and came in under budget, according to Proctor.

Donations from Novak and Rebele covered the cost.

Proctor was impressed by the support for the skate park in the community. Supervisor Zach Friend, who has a young son, was a big help, she added.

“People have been waiting for this for so long,” she said. “The kids grow up so fast.”

Her youngest was 6 when she started asking for a skate park in Capitola. He’s now 18, a high school senior going to Cabrillo College, close to home so he’ll be able to take advantage of the new skatepark.

Story By Jondi Gumz

Capitola Library

A question we often hear around Capitola and Soquel these days is What’s happening with the new library? And, the short reply is LOTS! In the dry months that have followed our winter deluge, Otto Construction has made substantial progress on the new library going up on the corner of Clares St. and Wharf Rd.

Recently, the final parts of the 11,700 square-foot foundation were completed and interior walls have been framed and are being raised.

If your travels don’t take you past the library construction site or you’d just plain like a better view of what’s happening there, go here: https://capitolalibraryfriends.org/capital-campaign-new-library-info/ Scroll a short way down the page to see the feed from the Otto Construction security camera. You can watch what’s happening on the site. The image updates about every 10 minutes. To see the amount of work that has been completed since last fall, click Time Lapse.

While construction moves along, so does the capital campaign. On a recent Wednesday evening, Gayle Ortiz could be found down on the Capitola Esplanade talking with concert goers about putting their own messages on a library paver.

People have been purchasing pavers that will have all sorts of inscriptions. Some will show the names of family members or businesses. Others have charming messages about what libraries and reading mean to them.

Quite a few pavers express loving tributes to friends and relatives. These inscribed pavers will be installed in the walkway leading up to the door of main entrance to the library. Next summer when the library opens, imagine finding your own paver at the new library.