Menard Park Pump Track in Galveston: Inside the Proposal

The Galveston County Daily News reported on a proposed pump track on a stretch of grass beside Menard Park's skate park. Jessica Counts described it as an entryway that could make the skate park safer.

That grass sits right next to the skate park, the concrete bowl on 28th Street that's been the only skate park on the island since it opened in 2009. Right now it's just flat ground and a berm, the kind of leftover space every park has. Counts and a Galveston business owner named William "Boog" Cram want to turn it into a pump track, a paved loop of rollers and banked turns that riders on bikes, skateboards, and scooters can pump through without pedaling or pushing, building speed from the terrain itself. It's the kind of feature that lets a six-year-old on a balance bike and a teenager on a BMX use the same space without getting in each other's way.

The two found each other by accident. Cram had wanted a pump track added to Menard Park going back to proposed improvements during the Covid-19 pandemic. Counts got involved after her kids told her they wished Galveston had one. Neither knew the other was pushing for the same thing until they crossed paths and decided to combine forces.

What makes this worth watching isn't the wish itself. Plenty of parents want more for their kids' park. What makes it worth watching is the specific, narrow thing Cram and Counts are asking for right now, and the brand-new civic tool they're using to try to get it.

A Park That Already Does a Lot

Menard Park isn't an empty lot with a skate bowl bolted on. It already carries a dog park, multiple tennis courts, a splash pad, an outdoor fitness court, and a community garden, all a short walk from the seawall. The skate park is a memorial, and Cram was part of the original push to get it built.

That history matters for understanding why a pump track proposal, on its face a fairly ordinary park amenity request, is being framed by its own advocates as a safety project. Counts has said the pump track would give beginners a place to build skill and confidence before they drop into the skate park's bowl, effectively making the memorial skatepark itself safer for the kids who show up without much experience. It's not a separate amenity competing for space. It's a front door to the one that's already there.

What This Actually Costs, and What It Doesn't Yet Have

Nothing about this project is close to settled. Organizers have walked the site with city officials and with a company that specializes in skate park design and construction, and that company has offered to draft a preliminary concept and budget at no charge. Rough construction estimates being floated run from about $300,000 to $750,000, depending on scope. No design has been finalized. No city funding has been approved. Marissa Barnett, the city's public information officer, told the Galveston County Daily News: "We're still in very early discussions and learning about the proposal from interested residents."

Worth sitting with for a second: the original skate park, bowl and all, was built for a fraction of what a single new pump track might cost today. That gap says less about extravagance and more about what two decades of construction inflation and higher engineering standards do to even a modest park project. It's also exactly why Cram and Counts aren't trying to raise $300,000 to $750,000 right now. They're trying to raise something much smaller and much more specific.

The Ask Is Smaller Than the Project

Here's the part that separates this from a typical "wouldn't it be nice" park wish list. Counts has said plainly what the group intends to request: not construction money, but funding for design-build plans. In other words, they want to use a small grant to pay for professional drawings and a real budget, the kind of documentation that turns a grassroots idea into something a city council, a foundation, or a corporate sponsor can actually act on.

The vehicle they're aiming at is new. The Rotary Club of Galveston Island Foundation launched something called the Community Choice Grant this fall, marking the club's 50th year serving the island. It's a $20,000 pool, and instead of a board quietly picking a recipient, Rotary is handing the decision to residents. Qualified nonprofits, schools, public agencies, and other community partners submit proposals addressing a real island need, whether that's education, health, the environment, public spaces, or civic safety. Rotary reviews the submissions and works with finalists to sharpen their pitch. Then the island votes.

The mechanics are specific enough to mark on a calendar. Proposals are due October 15, 2026. Community Vote Day runs starting at 5 p.m. on November 5, 2026, at MarMo, 2121 Market Street, where finalists set up and present their projects side by side so residents can compare them before voting.

That timeline puts a pump track proposal, if the group submits one, in front of Galveston voters within about six weeks. Whether it wins is a separate question from whether it's asked for. What's notable is the strategy: rather than waiting on a city capital improvements cycle or trying to raise construction money before anyone has seen a real plan, the group is using a small, fast, resident-facing grant to produce the one document, finished design-build plans, that would let them credibly go after the bigger dollars afterward. It's a bootstrap move, and it only exists because Rotary built a mechanism this year that didn't exist last year.

Why the Sequencing Is the Interesting Part

A lot of neighborhood improvement stories get told as pure wish lists: someone wants something, here's why it would be nice, the end. This one has an actual mechanism attached, and that mechanism is doing something specific. A $20,000 grant can't build a pump track. It can, potentially, buy the plans that make a $300,000 to $750,000 project fundable somewhere else, whether that's a future city budget line, a different foundation, or private donors who want to see a real number before they commit.

If the proposal makes the finalist round, residents who show up at MarMo on November 5 won't be voting on whether Galveston gets a pump track. They'll be voting on whether Galveston pays for the paperwork that makes asking for a pump track possible. That's a smaller, more specific choice than the framing usually makes it sound like, and knowing the difference is the kind of thing you'd only pick up by reading past the headline.

For now, the ground next to the skate park is still just grass and a berm, as Cram told the Galveston County Daily News: "It's just grass right now." Whether that changes depends less on how many people want a pump track and more on whether a five-week-old grant program decides this is the project worth funding first.

Anyone who wants to track how the vote comes together, or wants to weigh in before October 15, can find details on the Community Choice Grant directly through the Rotary Club of Galveston Island. The original reporting on the pump track proposal, including full comments from Cram, Counts, and the city, ran in the Galveston County Daily News.

Galveston keeps building the small stuff this way, one grassroots coalition and one new civic mechanism at a time, and that's part of what makes this island feel like a place worth paying attention to, not just a place to visit. If you're curious about the neighborhoods around Menard Park and the rest of the island, Shani Atkinson keeps an eye on what's happening here, not just what's for sale.