A mobile skate park purchased with much fanfare for $20,000 in 2002 is being sold for $500 to the city of Campbell to be used at its skate park at the Campbell Community Center on W. Campbell Avenue.

"We do not feel that we are giving this away. This will be an opportunity for kids in Saratoga to use the mobile skate park in a more permanent facility," said Joan Pisani, the director of recreation for the city of Saratoga.

Campbell city officials had asked the Saratoga City Council for $25,000 for its skate park earlier this year. The council cited budget constraints as its inability to pay that amount. But they decided to sell the mobile skate park to Campbell at a much reduced rate.

In a meeting on July 20, the Campbell City Council authorized its city manager to buy the equipment from Saratoga.

"We ended up getting more pieces than we thought. It was difficult to cart around the various pieces of the skate park to different locations," said Pisani. She also said that moving the park was very labor-intensive, and no neighborhood wanted it for a long period of time.

Pisani was part of the skate park task force committee that recommended the mobile skate park option to the city council.

"I'm all for it," said then Mayor Nick Streit at a city council meeting on Jan. 8, 2002. "I don't think we do enough for our youth to keep them active in this city." Streit had raised some concern about the staffing needs for the park at that meeting, but the city council then decided to go ahead and buy it.

"The vendor had said that the park was easy to move and one person could move it, but that was not the case," said Pisani. She said that initially the city had thought about loaning the property to Campbell, but in the end Saratoga City Attorney Richard Taylor advised the city to sell it to Campbell to release Saratoga from any liabilities.

The mobile skate park had last been used in 2003 and has been sitting unused in the city corporation yard since then.

City Manager Dave Anderson said that there was no permanent place for the park in Saratoga. "It was very labor-intensive. I also believe that it was not challenging enough for the older kids," said Anderson. "We also had to advertise continuously, as it moved from location to location."

Pisani also indicated that the city had limited experience with skateboard parks and that that might have been a factor when they decided to purchase it.