— News Analysis —
Who owns Grants pool, skate park

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Helen Davis
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — The Grants city skate board park and the Paddy Martinez swimming pool behind Future Foundations Family Center are not only unusable and easily vandalized, they are outright eyesores in and of themselves.

The skate park is surrounded with weeds which have moved into the cracked and pebble-strewn concrete of the park itself; the pool is surrounded by a chain-link fence with broken screen dangling in places. Stagnant water sits in the deep end; weeds are overgrown here, as well; the new bathhouses are vacant and suffer broken windows or graffiti as the vandals please.

These adjacent lots and structures are not taken care of.
The city of Grants donated land for the construction of the family center to Cibola County, who is in charge of the center, but the city built the skate board park with city money, said county Manager David Ulibarri. The county obtained a grant for the construction of the bathhouse for the pool, on county property at the time, but split the required match with the city, each entity paying 5 percent of the grant amount. The bathhouse cost between $300,000 and $400,000, with the match being a total of 10 per cent, the county manager continued.

Ulibarri said the pool and the skate park belong to the city. He explained that Paddy Martinez Pool has always been a city pool, the city built the skate park, and the county does not want to be liable for the park, so the county gave the pool and park lots back to the city in 2003. Ulibarri provided the Independent with copies of a May deed and an amended August deed from 2003 recording the transfer.

Grants Recreation Director Dick Griffith said in an interview earlier this month that the city did not accept the land back, and that the two governments go back and forth about who owns the properties. According to Qwest Title Company, although no one is required to formally accept a property deeded over to them, the land belongs to the recipient.

Although the city put between $30,000 and $35,000 into building the skate park, neither the mayor nor the city manager claims the park in on city land, but City Manager Robert Horacek said he would look into the issue. In last week’s city workshop meeting, Mayor Joe Murietta said,

“The skate park is not on our property.”

Issues concerning the skate park simmer behind the scenes, with city youngsters finding other places like Riverwalk Park, Mesa Boulveard and Albuquerque to skate. Malaj said she get complaints from parents about conditions in the park from time to time. Griffith said he rarely receives complaints but believes the park should be moved because it is too isolated and attracts criminal activities. Skaters complain to each other.

The swimming pool has come under some public scrutiny lately as the City Council looks into distributing the parks and recreation money on hand and weighs whether to refurbish the pool, demolish it or build an new pool in a different location. However, if the city does not own the pool, or the bathhouses, they will encounter difficulties with anything they attempt to.

While the ownership of the properties are up in the air, the skate park and the swimming pool continue to deteriorate with no one caring for them.