Update: Alan Sanchez with CW31 Good Day Sacramento will be coming out to get some video shots of his hometown Turlock working on this project and will even try to handle a shovel himself.
Tune in to Good Day Sacramento on CW31 on Sunday morning at 8am to see how we promote Turlock’s community volunteerism (and see Alan try to work too)!
Sunday, March 14, 2010 from 8am – 5pm will be the first of approximately three volunteer work days supervised by the City of Turlock Parks Division.
The City of Turlock held a soft opening for the Turlock BMX Bike Park on December 19, 2009 but received some complaints that it was prematurely opened as the jumps were not finished being formed, the design from the community committee leading the project was not followed, and that this along with other issues made it unsafe.
The overall general public review of their BMX pike park has been that it’s good that Turlock has one, it’s fun, but that it should’ve been better and still could be improved.
Without going into how all this happened, Municipal Services Director Dan Madden and Parks Supervisor Ray Garcia met with two of the community members who have been working on the project since February 2007, David (DJ) Fransen and Matt Nascimento, to see what could be done to make the BMX bike park better.
The biggest concern with the bike park from the community committee was that the design Matt Nascimento, and other local bike riders, had submitted wasn’t followed while the bike park wasn’t really finished as the jumps still needed shaping and the lips formed.
The City of Turlock’s biggest concern is to make sure that the bike park is safe while creating the best BMX bike park within their limits.
After a short conversation of Nascimento addressing issues of the more advanced jumps, Fransen’s focus on the overall “completion” and correctly forming of the jumps, and City Staff analyzing potential comprises while holding safety as their highest priority, the group of four worked out all the issues.
From the meeting, a decision to move forward by having approximately three volunteer work days on the next three Sundays from 8am – 5pm was made.
The first volunteer Sunday from 8am – 5pm will be March 14, 2010.
A signed waiver is required to work on the project. If a volunteer is a minor, a parent’s signature is needed. Download the waiver (pdf) here.
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