Popular kids’ activity looking for a home

Greg Harman

Thursday, April 27, 2000 | 11:36 a.m.

Matt Garrett and Kelley Bryant grew up possessed by an irrepressible criminal urge: They wanted to skate.

The pair spent their high school years collecting fines and having their scarred skateboards confiscated by the local police after cruising city streets and parking lots, which is illegal in Boulder City.

As the popularity of skateboarding has grown through the past decade and sales of in-line skates have boomed, so has local enforcement of city ordinances that limit "any coaster, toy vehicle, skateboard, in-line roller skates or similar device" to crosswalks. Winding down sidewalks or through parking lots is taboo.

Parents pushed the city to create a sanctioned space for area skaters. But now that has run afoul of neighbors, and the Boulder City Council is looking for a less controversial solution.

"They told the city, we need someplace for our kids to skate, since you won't let them anywhere else," Patty Sullivan, the city's recreation program coordinator, said. "They needed someplace where it wouldn't be looked upon as delinquent behavior -- for being a kid."

In March wooden ramps were stationed on an old basketball court inside ABC Park, blocks from the local schools. An 8-foot wall was erected to shield neighbors from unwanted noise.

"When they finally opened this place up, I was shocked. I was like, 'Wow,' " said Garrett, who at 22 is still an avid skater. "It's just amazing it's here at all."

But the $30,000 the city dropped on the wooden ramps was just the beginning. The city was poised to spend as much as $150,000 for a more permanent park of concrete "pools" at the park when the complaints started pouring in.

Nearby residents informed the City Council last month that the noise of plastic wheels grinding and thrashing over and across the ramps was like living next door to a construction site "that is never going to go away," Sullivan said.

A study of decibel levels found that the skate park was within an acceptable range, City Manager John Sullard told the council earlier this month.

But the city seems bent on moving the park.

The Boulder City Parks and Recreation Commission voted Monday night to recommend the city move the skate park to Veterans Memorial Park, about 2 miles south of its current location, Sullard said.

Opponents argue that is too far to ask children to go for recreation.

But Sullard said the commission expects most park users to be "older kids" able to make the commute.

Tuesday the council sent a signal that is was going to move the ramps out of ABC Park when it canceled a vote on a contract for the skate park's design -- which still specifies ABC Park as the host site -- but promised to readdress the issue May 9, when a list of recommended sites will be presented to the council by city staff.

In the meantime, Sullivan is trying to design ways to quiet the wooden ramps, toying with the idea of packing them with insulation.

At the skateboard store across town, business owner Todd Price is complimentary of the city's efforts.

"The city wanted kids to have someplace to go and skate, you know? It's really worked out well," Price said.

But Bryant can't help but feel shuffled around.

Gazing across the blacktop at the steep ramps and the teams of middle and high school age kids buzzing back and forth, talking about the years he has spent struggling for his sport -- the petitions he circulated around his high school years ago -- seems to increase his exhaustion.

The city didn't want him in the street, he said. Now they don't seem to want him in the park, either.

"It seems that either way they're not satisfied."

Greg Harman covers Henderson and Boulder City for the Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-8814 or by e-mail at harman@lasvegassun.com