The quest for the Forestville SkateSpot

Jacque Brazieal sees the community skatepark coming to fruition in 3-5 years

Volunteers in Forestville have been working on building a skatepark in Forestville since 2014.

Skateparks aren’t built in a day. Just ask Jacque Brazieal, co-founder of Forestville Skatespot, a nonprofit dedicated to building Forestville’s first community skatepark. When her son, Ellery Kuntz, began skateboarding in his teenage years and had to travel all the way to Sebastopol’s Laguna Skategarden Skatepark to engage in the sport, the two began advocating for youth skateboarders and campaigning for the construction of a local skatepark in 2014.

A 28-year resident of Forestville, Brazieal believes the park will benefit not just local skaters, but the town and the county as a whole. She said that statistics show that skateboarding benefits youth physically, mentally and socially, while reducing crime. The road to completion has been slow and winding, but along the way, her group has hit numerous milestones and developed some intriguing plans. Her advocacy has paid off — connections and partnerships have been forged, and funding has arrived through numerous avenues.

Jacque Brazieal, co-founder of nonprofit Forestville Skatespot, stands at the corner of Packing House Road and Forestville Street in front of 2.5 acres of county-owned land, the proposed site of Forestville’s community skatepark. (Photo by Mark Fernquest)

“The challenge with [our skatepark], specifically, is that Forestville does not have governance. We’re unincorporated. We don’t even have a mayor,” Brazieal said during a recent interview. “But we’re working with the county. They’ve hung in there with us since 2019 really, or 2017 — it was kind of when the Tubbs fire was that we started working with Supervisor Hopkins.”

After years of hard work, the project has now reached the pre-permit, due-diligence phase. The proposed location is a 2.5-acre parcel of county parkland bordered by Packing House Road, Forestville Street and Highway 116 on the southwest edge of town. The concrete skatepark itself, as envisioned on the Preliminary Site Plan, will be .25 acres/10,000 square feet in size, with the rest of the land encompassing a parking lot, a rain garden, footpaths, service roads and a rest/picnic area for the greater community, as well as a Community Emergency Resiliency Center. Supervisor Hopkins contributed $336,000 to cover the cost of the recent environmental review.

An early design concept for Forestville Skatespot skatepark that closely resembles the current version. The skatepark will take up .25 acres, or 10,000 square feet, and will cost an estimated $750,000 to build.

In addition to the cost of the skatepark’s initial construction, estimated at $750,000, ongoing maintenance must be accounted for. Brazieal floated the idea that perhaps local volunteers could maintain the skatepark, while the county tends to the rest of the community park.

Such a coalition already exists between Sonoma’s Valley of the Moon Park Riders Union and the county.

“We currently have sort of an unofficial stewardship at the [Maxwell Farms] skatepark,” said Park Riders Union founder Nick Koerner. “We do a lot of concrete repairs. We repair obstacles that are in need of attention. So basically we’re working with the County on a larger expansion plan. And at the moment we do volunteer work through the Parks Department, and our group is under their umbrella as parks volunteers.”

“We’re not partners with the county,” Brazieal said. “We’re still figuring out how to spell out the relationship.”

Meanwhile, Brazieal continues to hold Forestville Skatespot’s monthly meetings. County meetings take place less often, depending on how much progress has been made and what the next steps are. Brazieal also continues to engage the community with outreach and fundraisers, including “skate jams” at Carr’s Drive In, four Fun Runs to date and last week’s successful Give Back Tuesday event at Rainbow Cattle Company in Guerneville, which netted $2,000 in donations.

The After School Skateboarding Program for students at Forestville Union School District, grades 4–8, has proven very popular. Funded by the Forestville Community Fund and the Sonoma County Justice Department, the program provides students with skateboards and safety gear, and pays student teachers, while keeping the local skating tradition alive.

To date, Brazieal has raised $82,000, all of it hard-won. Looking forward, she estimates Forestville’s skatepark will be built within 3-5 years. She’s quick to call out all the organizations and people who continue to assist and support the efforts of the Skatespot project. One such organization, the Skatepark Project, founded by famous skater Tony Hawk and located in Vista, California, “provides the resources, advocacy skills, grants and fellowship programs that guide skaters in creating their own community skateparks, from conception through construction.” The nonprofit provides Brazieal with free assistance and also awards one-time grants of up to $25,000 to deserving skatepark projects.

“Johannes Hoevertsz, director of Public Infrastructure, who controls the Packinghouse site, and Supervisor Hopkins and the D5 team have been fantastic to work with and supportive throughout our long process. I’ve learned so much since Ellery and I started the project — it’s not like just helping your kid do a lemonade stand!” Brazieal said.

Her message to the greater community is: “You don’t have to be a skateboarder to have fun at a skatepark. It’s a space of joy, pure joy — kids doing their thing, people watching kids doing their thing, people walking around, interacting.” And, she added, skateparks are much safer than streets.

Her next fundraiser? Another skate jam at Carr’s Drive In, hopefully in October. With the end of the Skatespot project on the horizon, she’s more motivated than ever to see Sonoma County’s 10th skatepark built.

For more information or to make a donation, visit: www.forestvilleskatespot.org.

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