Gabriel Official Opening July 11

Word from Portland Parks is that the official opening day for Gabriel skatepark is July 11, 2008 – a short 16 days from now but in fact it may open for skating sooner than that. Stay tuned for more details.

update: No word on early opening. They still need to do some hydroseeding. There is a Portland Tribune article that talks about the budget woes. Enjoy the complaining about the city spending money on anything and a particularly uniformed shot at the new mayor, even though Parks is Saltzman’s bailiwick, in the comments.

There was some confusion about the involvement of a non-profit as well. Skaters for Portland Skateparks is a non-profit with a volunteer staff of three. We got the ball rolling at Pier Park and showed the commissioners what a vital thing a skatepark could be. Dan Salzman was so impressed he proposed budgeting a million dollars to build skateparks 4 (Gabriel) and 5 (Ed Benedict). Apart from that and our putting time into the public meetings process, that is the extent of our involvement in Gabriel Park.