The Birth of a Solution
Respecting those opinions, both Mr. LaPointe and Mr. Herbertson put aside any consideration for the Interim Park.
Until…
A fateful day in January shortly after the City Council had voted to place the New Park in a stretch of green grass that offended many environmental sensibilities.
City Councilman Steve Rose, who voted for the grassy area but was uncomfortable with the choice, prevailed upon Mr. LaPointe to produce a compromise location within the confines of Culver City Park. That, it turns out, was akin to thrusting a piping hot juicy steak in front of a plump person who had been fasting since Arbor Day. This was a pitch in the heart of Mr. LaPointe’s strike zone. It is his specialty.
Without dipping into the flora and fauna of the painful hunt for The Perfect Skateboard Park, the hero’s mantle in this little drama may belong on the unseeking shoulders of Mr. LaPointe.
Across the desk in his second-story office to the rear of the venerable Vets Building yesterday morning, the soft-spoken Mr. LaPointe was the picture of a modern-day parks director.
Medium of height, slender and light complexioned, his stubby-short sand-colored hair gives him the youthful appearance of Mickey Mantle at the peak of his playing days. The comparison quickly dissolves because Mr. LaPointe is disarmingly modest.
The effect of his dark business suit was nicely balanced by a light, tieless dress shirt that was comfortably open at the collar.
At Ease, a Permanent Condition
At every turn, Mr. LaPointe is nothing if not comfortable. Even hanging upside down by his thumbs, he probably would be at ease. Unless the wind was blowing.
Choosing the Interim Park over the grassy picnic area or a separate paved areawas so obvious that it begged the question of why Mr. LaPointe was not consulted before.
The answer is as sheerly pristine as the waters at Lourdes:
After serving cities in Colorado, Texas and Southern California for the past thirty years, Mr. LaPointe knows his role even better than he knows the nutritional habits of his wife. When to stand, when to sit, when to volunteer, when to unobtrusively observe, when to be visible and invisible.
No mechanical robot, Mr. LaPointe appears to possess pluperfect political pitch. Thirty straight years of unyielding City Hall-flavored education have finely-tuned his touch to a community’s personality.
“I am a person who always tries to look for solutions to problems and to the challenges that we have,” he says. “I don’t necessarily believe conflict has to be a bad thing. It can actually produce positive results. I never stop looking for possible solutions to problems. Sometimes that can be frustrating because, seemingly, sometimes there is no way out.”
One reason the City Council was unable to produce a satisfactory outcome on its first vote in January was that the grassy area and the separate paved area were the options they were presented with.
Mr. LaPointe explains: “When I came on — and I have checked this out with a couple of staff members who came on recently — we reviewed what happened. I said that when I came on, the Skateboard Park was one of the topics on the plate.
“I was told by a staff member that the temporary park was not a possibility. It was too small. So that becomes a part of your assumptions.
“The grassy part, I was told, was now the location for it. When I came on, I understood that because of that explanation, and so I started with those kinds of assumptions.”
The Dead End That Wasn’t
Mr. LaPointe’s introductory conversation took place last June, more than six months before the City Council’s Jan. 9 controversial vote.
Months later, as the debate heated up over where to build the New Skateboard Park, Mr. LaPointe’s opinion was sought.
“I was asked, ‘If you had other options, where would you place the Skateboard Park?’” After scrutinizing the whole of Culver City Park, he decided that the basketball court held the most promise.
A little more time passed, and by now both Mr. Herbertson, as the Public Works Director, and Mr. LaPointe were enmeshed in the community debate that seemed to be widening.
One Friday night around 7 o’clock, Mr. LaPointe found Mr. Herbertson pacing off measurements around the Interim Skateboard Park. At five thousand, the patch of ground everyone else shrugged off was less than half of the square footage needed to meet the spatial requirements of the grant.
Picture this: Mr. Herbertson and Mr. LaPointe, similar in build and disposition, probably City Hall’s least loquacious leaders, closely inspecting the grounds in the deadest silence.
It is only slightly hyperbolic to report that both gentlemen could ride across the widest portion of America without rupturing a screen of silence.
At a point, each learned that the other had been told at the start of his employment that the Interim Park was too small for the permanent home.
Could the advice to both men possibly have been faulty? They decided to see for themselves.
Mr. LaPointe turned to Mr. Herbertson. “Let’s pace it off and check it,” the parks and rec guy suggested. “He walked it, and I did, too. Conceptually I looked at it, and I did an overlay.”
Almost without hesitation, they came to matching conclusions, that sufficient land could be cleared. As for the expense, that appeared tuckable inside of the city’s budget.
And so a conundrum died a welcome death.
Stay tuned for a late summer opening of the New Skateboard Park.
The chill-out solution has been made possible by two taciturn, pleasantly stubborn city leaders who simply would not take no as their final answer.
