Skinner Earns ‘Citizen’ Award for Park Project

Mike Skinner, a longtime resident and youth sports coach who directed the community-driven campaign to expand, renovate and enhance the four playing fields at the Palisades Recreation Center, has been named Citizen of the Year by the Palisadian-Post. He will be honored on April 29-along with the Golden Sparkplug winners-at the 57th Annual Citizen of the Year banquet at the Riviera Country Club. “Mike began pushing for the long-needed overhaul of the playing fields in 1999, after the new gym was completed,” said Post Publisher Roberta Donohue. “When he realized that city funding for this project simply wasn’t going to happen, he came up with a plan to have the community raise the funds and hire a private contractor to rebuild the fields in accordance with city regulations, then turn everything back over to the city. “After receiving approval from the Dept. of Recreation and Parks, Mike’s group set a goal of $850,000 last March (later raised to $950,000 to provide a $100,000 maintenance fund for upkeep of the fields), and completion of the entire project by October. Miraculously, the fields were ready for AYSO soccer games on November 8 and the bills have been paid.” The state-of-the-art facility will have its official dedication during the Palisades Pony Baseball Association’s traditional Pancake Breakfast festivities on Saturday, March 20. Bob Benton, the town’s sporting goods owner and perennial commissioner of the PPBA, was among those nominating Skinner for Citizen honors. “As someone who has been deeply involved in the affairs of our community for the past 22 years,” Benton wrote, “I have come to understand that a single individual, through his own selfless efforts, can greatly affect the greater good.” He pointed out Skinner’s contributions as a youth football, basketball and baseball coach, and his active role on the Park Advisory Board since its organization in 1998. “But by far the greatest task that Mike set for himself was spearheading what became known as the Field of Dreams project.” “It is difficult to overstate the enormousness of this undertaking,” Benton continued. “A few years ago as the City was filling Potrero Canyon, they built a large wall around our park that left much undeveloped space on the mesa; they took out all the trees that bounded our park; and told us that there was no money to fix anything. Our park was a mess. [At Mike’s urging], the PPBA board of directors decided that we would try and build the project. Mike was our choice to head up the committee. What a choice! He has spent countless hours in meetings, phone calls, design consultations and fundraising. He met with neighbors concerned with parking, crowds and lighting issues. He moderated the often contentious debates over the inclusion of a skatepark, urging mutual understanding between the parties. It was Mike who used his own money to fund the preliminary designs and surveys necessary to get the project rolling, using the reservoir of good will he has built up over the years to urge local officials and prominent residents to get behind the project. Mike commissioned a color rendering and model of the new park that would illustrate for the community what was possible and he would cart it out on Opening Day and the Fourth of July to rally support. And Mike’s only motivation was to replace a park that he truly felt was antiquated and dangerous. Said Benton: “When it became clear that no public funds were available for a project of this size, Mike organized a 100 percent community-based fundraising campaign that has successfully raised enough to money to complete the park. (It is important to remember that he has done all this despite the fact that his own kids are now too old to participate in any of our community-based sports activities.) But Mike did not stop with the completion of our beautiful new park. Along with the Park Advisory Board and a select group of dedicated volunteers, he is continuing his fundraising efforts to ensure that the park is maintained by the community and does not fall into the state of disrepair we saw with the old fields. The result of this gargantuan effort is a wonderful new park, with larger and safer playing fields that are available for both youth and adult sports, joggers, dog lovers and those who just want to enjoy the best of what our community has to offer. “I was taking my usual walk to the park one day in early November to check on the building progress and happened to see Mike out in the middle of the fields mowing the lawn atop the new tractor mower that was purchased as part of the new maintenance program,” Benton concluded. “The 5- and 6-year-olds were about to start playing AYSO soccer on the new fields and Mike wanted to make sure everything was in tip-top shape. Mike Skinner is a busy man who runs his own business here on the Westside and has his own family obligations. But it did not at all surprise me that he would get out there and personally see to it that the children of our community had a safe place to play.” Writing on behalf of the Park Advisory Board to nominate Skinner for the “Citizen” award, member Charlie Castle said: “The wonderful result of Mike’s knowledge and leadership…is complete renovation of the fields, including leveling, installing sprinklers and grass, removing old lights and installing new ones, new seating, dugouts and beautiful landscaping-all quickly done with a minimum of inconvenience for park users and neighbors.” “Citizen” banquet tickets are now on sale. The cost is $60 per person and seating is limited. Please make checks payable to Pacific Palisades Citizen-of-the-Year Dinner and mail them to P.O. Box 725, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272 or bring them to the Palisadian-Post office at 839 Via de la Paz.