EP 27: The Skatepark Solution
Local governments are always looking for ways to get kids involved. Meanwhile, millions of skaters across the U.S. are doing their thing -- often to the irritation of business owners and law enforcement. On this episode, we look at the big things that happen when kids and government get together to develop public skateparks, a solution that takes away tension, encourages civic involvement and celebrates freedom and creativity. It's no wonder they often end up being the most popular feature of the local parks system. Listen in for practical advice from the Tony Hawk Foundation, lessons from a police captain who did an about-face with the local skating community, progress from a city currently developing a skatepark, and unquestionable testimony from kids who've benefited from the free, 24-hour public skatepark in their town. Show notes: UPDATE 12/7/17 Curbed article featuring this episode - https://www.curbed.com/2017/12/7/16746468/design-parks-skateboarding-teens Skatepark advice and financial help - http://tonyhawkfoundation.org Public Skatepark Development Guide - http://publicskateparkguide.org Rodgers Family Skate Plaza, Apex, N.C. - https://www.apexnc.org/485/Trackside-Skate-Plaza News story from the Skate Plaza's opening in 2015 - http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/southwest-wake-news/article30160455.html Morganton, N.C., skatepark in the works - http://www.morgantonnc.gov/index.php/government/city-manager/public-information-office/news-releases/2579-skate-park-moves-forward
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Transcript
On this episode of Municipal Equation. And we sat down and just really tried to understand each other. And I believe that's where the the wall of stereotype was broken, because I was looking at him as a skateboarder
being a problem in our town. It's because they're they're tearing up stuff. Everybody thinks or they're they're out skating real late, and you get a lot of, you know, graffiti and things like that. But I tell you, I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised. What they're doing is they're doing precisely what we've been encouraging them to do. Get out, be active, you know, learn some skills, be physically fit. And here we have skaters doing it, and then as soon as they do it in a community without a skate park, more often than not, they're getting tickets. It's sending a real
mixed message to these skaters. And this is the only free and safe skate park that we have, and if it wasn't here, it'd be life changing. This is an outlet to a lot of people.
Local governments are always looking for ways to get kids more involved. Meanwhile, millions of skaters across The US are doing their thing, often to the irritation of business owners and law enforcement. We look at the big things that happen when kids and government get together to develop public skate parks, and the takeaways are actually a lot more than I expected. My name is Ben Brown, and this is Municipal Equation, a podcast from the North Carolina League of Municipalities. Episode 27. So I'm a former skateboarder. That hardly makes me unique. And not former as in the retired professional sense. I mean, I was like literally millions of other kids whose tool for outdoor recreation and interaction was the skateboard. And I was pretty loyal to it from the age of about seven until 16 or so. My first complete skateboard came to me in the mid nineteen eighties. It was a Nash Heat Zone deck that altogether weighed about a trillion pounds. As I got better, I got better boards, learned better tricks, got obsessed with skate videos from companies like H Street and New Deal. Obsessed with skate videos from companies like h street and new deal. And plus, everyone I hung out with skated. All of my friends skated. That's how I made new friends too and enemies. But basically, skateboarding was for me the real actual starting point for human interaction, self reliance, invention, quick thinking, and sometimes trouble. Because when my friends and I got sick of skating in our flat boring driveways, we ventured out in search of more challenging and dynamic spots. Quite often that was outside of a private business or at the nearby public school or the neighborhood bank or somewhere else that wasn't built for skateboarders in mind. And, yeah, our style of skating could be destructive to the concrete and the curves and the planters and benches. And honestly, being 12 or 13 years old, we really didn't care all that much. We were just having fun and didn't have anywhere else adequate to go. That meant that we were miscreants. And we got chased off all the time. Sometimes police would come out. And this sounds dramatic, but as any kid who skates, ask any police officer about this, about the tension that's created in these situations between youths and adults or with police or the business community. And this leads to the passage of no skateboarding ordinances or trespassing prosecutions or other things that make sense to implement for the sake of dealing with a problem. But at the same time, this one involves kids being active and doing it the way that works for them. And you might say, well, you know, there are plenty of other ways that kids can be active. You can play soccer. You can go hiking, etcetera. Well, I did all that stuff as well. And so did all of my friends. But skating always called to us. Now, this episode is not me waving the banner of skateboarding or speaking up in defense of any particular sector or kind of behavior. But what I am doing on this episode is highlighting how kids and local government leaders are seeing another common angle, identifying the problems they see and working together to come up with a solution that takes away the tension and encourages involvement and freedom and creativity. And that solution in so many cities and towns has been the public skate park. Alright. So I have just pulled into the parking lot of the Rogers Family Skate Plaza in Apex, North Carolina. Apex is, in the Triangle region of the state. It's known as the Peak City, and I guess I should give a shout out to, the Peak City podcast because I'm on their turf right now. But, yeah, the skate park is it's, 10:35AM on a Tuesday, and this place is already packed. Don't know what the hours are, but, looks like some kids have been out here for a while and more are showing up right now. And it turns out that the hours are twenty four. This park is actually open to skaters twenty four hours a day. And one of the cars pulling into the parking lot as I was speaking was that of Apex police captain Jacques Gilbert, who helped to originate the idea for the skate park here. I had arranged to meet with captain Gilbert out there to learn about the park and talk with some of the skaters on-site who use the park pretty much every day. On-site. I'm Ben Brown. It's right near a set of train tracks, and you can hear an idling train in the background here. So what do you think about the plaza support? It's beautiful. Can you look at it one more time? Yeah. Yeah. It's nice. Yeah. I had to take a little spin around. The park is concrete and is part of a larger municipal park complex with soccer fields, things like that. The skate park was easily the most popular piece out there, at least during the time of my visit, but I hear that's pretty typical. A lot of demand, a lot of repeat use.
I can tell you, it it is no secret. I'm sure it's the same way in a in a lot of municipalities, jurisdictions where police officers get a lot of calls for service to, what is reported as trespassing at, business areas, churches, just parking lots or what have you. And it was really just a problem solving opportunity, and it all came about, we got a call to a residential section in our, in town, and a young man was skateboarding in his own driveway. I actually answered that call. And after getting the information from the complainant, I went to the, the location where the noise is coming from, which ended up being a young man that I had talked to many times times before about skateboarding on properties that he was not invited to. That's right. Yeah. And that young man, you know, at the conclusion of that talk, he he asked me the question, where where can we skate? I can't skate in my own driveway. And my initial response was, no. You can't skate in your own driveway. And his response was, what am I supposed to do? Right. My response was, well, you have to figure it out. And I left, but I I left and I felt convicted because I like, that's not how we do business. So I returned to his residence and said, let's try to work something out. That led to a an initial meeting that same week at Chick fil A, and we sat down and just really tried to understand each other. And I believe that's where this the wall of stereotype was broken, because I was looking at him as a skateboarder being a problem in our town, and just by the way he dressed, the board that he carried. But at the same time, he was having a lot of conversations with police officers, and he was maybe judging police officers by the job that we do, the badge we carry. And, so it was a great opportunity for us to really understand each other, and that broke down walls. And that further led to more meetings, and we just started saying, well, what can we do to help each other?
The Rogers Family Skate Plaza in Apex came together with public and private money. And one thing I somehow failed to put much thought into before this interview was that skateboarding, in the popular sense, has been around for a long time now. And so some of these business people and government officials and other adults who helped shape the community appreciate this because they used to skate. I mean, what's the age range of participation here? It's everybody. It's it's a community, man. It's Old men. Little kids to old men. Yes. It is.
I think the oldest I've seen, I asked the gentleman, he was over there near the bowl, and he was 56. Yeah. And getting it in just like these young men. Yeah. So, yeah, having a great time. Yeah.
I grew up skating, in the heyday of skateboarding in the late seventies and early eighties. When I was a child, my mom gave me a little Grintek plastic skateboard for Christmas or birthday, and it was probably about '19, '74 or so right in there. And and we rolled around. All the kids in the neighborhood shared it, and we rolled around and passed it around and went off curbs and did all that bumps some hills in Seattle. And and then later, I I appealed for a better skateboard, when I was a teenager, and I got a better skateboard. And then pretty soon, I was raking yards and and, able to buy my own skateboards when when that first generation of well, for me, my first generation in parks, were coming up. They were all retail at the time, but, but it was a place to go and and super fun and snake runs and balls and all kinds of stuff. And our skateboards were larger than our feet and flat of the grid all. It was really a good day. And then, port laws changed in across the nation, and higher amounts of insurance were required for, things like retail skate parks. And, a lot of them just couldn't make it work, and they closed down and kids took to the street that I did. Everybody else in my generation started skating around wherever they could find for me. Okay. So who is this? My name is Peter Whitley. I am the programs director at the Tony Hawk Foundation. We're a national organization, dedicated to supporting advocates, skate park advocates, and the development of, public skate parks across the world across the world. And then in The United States, we also offer,
construction grants to, eligible communities pursuing their skate parks. How how did it come to be? We know who Tony Hawk is, but, you know, how did the foundation itself come to be?
It it was Tony's idea. Tony's been a professional skateboarder for, for as long as anybody can remember. He's he's a legend in skateboarding, and he, had helped a community or he had responded to a community who, to who had asked that he appear and do a demo for their, for their people, and and, he obliged and showed up and showed up at the new skate parks that they had just built and they were so proud of. And and he started rolling around or took a look at it at least and and realized that it really was not serving anybody's needs. The quality was so bad that it it couldn't be skated, and it wasn't facilitating skills and and, you know, building community around that spot. It was it was kind of an impediment to to using it because they had hired a a a an inexperienced designer and builder, and they just, you know, the general contractor that they hired to build it, didn't know what they were doing and what what to even really look for. They were just kinda building shapes out of concrete that seemed like they might be fun, but but it wasn't really working. And and Tony realized at that point that he was in a unique position to help communities answer questions about what makes a good skate park and and what its goals should be and how it should function and and what a a healthy skate park looks like, informed, the the Tony Hawk Foundation, largely with his own money at the beginning. And then, later, it became a, it was a family foundation at first, and then it and then it became a two years later became a, a standard five zero one c three, and now we, raise funds from, all over and then turn them into skate park grants and and technical assistance.
Skating kinda used to be associated with trouble. You know, when I was growing up and, you know, and I guess when I started skating, it was the the late eighties, early nineties. And skate parks do seem to be a solution, you know, kinda giving kids a better way to channel and hone their skills. And, to you and and you were getting to this. What's the value of a skate park to a community? And, you know, does the answer change at all if I asked about the value of public skate parks that receive some sort of community investment?
Yeah. That's a that's a big factor. We understand that the value to of public skate parks, is is kind of twofold. There's there's two major components to it. The first the first benefit of of a public skate park is that no skate park in the nation, to my knowledge, was ever created because a city council person or a treasurer or somebody or a manager said out of the blue, I think we should build a skate park. Right. Right. They they are all the result of of skaters, local skaters, and the and the people in their lives, saying, hey. Hey. All these kids are skating in the street, and they're skating in places that are inappropriate, and this just isn't acceptable because what they're doing is they're doing precisely what we've been encouraging them to do is that, you know, get out, be active, go outside, play, you know, learn some skills, develop, be physically fit, and do it habitually. And here we have skaters doing it, and then as soon as they do it in a community without a skate park, more often than not, they're getting tickets. And it's it's sending a real mixed message to these skaters that if they wanna do, on one hand, what the community is telling them to do, they also, on the other hand, need to take risks because the the community is simultaneously telling them not to do it. So we've seen that about three quarters of the of the communities that we work with, who wanna push for a skate park, who are who are advocating for a skate park are responding to a local ordinance. So so this means that all those tickets and all those, you know, board confiscations are sitting down on the curb and listening, getting chewed out or just getting chased out of some place, all of that is increasing the the frustration, not just by the public, but also by the skaters too. You know, they're they're frustrated that they wanna skate, and they wanna do something that they think is inherently good for everything, and and yet they're being told that, not to do it. So that's that's sort of the catalyst as far as we see. So the the one benefit so the getting back to that, the first big benefit is in those kids who are getting tickets are now going out to the parks commission and testifying to the need for a skate park, and they're engaging with city council. And they're saying, how do we do this? We need your guidance. We wanna work with you to to see this through. What do you need us to do? And that's a pretty incredible thing when you stop and think about it. Sure. Yeah. A lot of times these kids are 14, 15, 16 years old and are on the fringes of society, you know, or fringes of community because they're getting tickets and sort of at risk of being, described as local criminals. And, and here they are standing up in front of city council, you know, reading with their shaky hands, their notes, you know, that they carefully prepared. And Right. And it's awesome. And so and so that's the kind of thing that we really love to see. We love to see these kids stepping up to the podium and and saying, you know, hey. We wanna be a part of this community too. We wanna improve this community, and we want this community to to accept us.
So were as far as the local government process, were kids brought in? Were they involved? Were they consulted with in the formation of this? Sure thing. Yeah. It it led to the town and the community really getting behind it, and that's why I love Apex.
People here really like to support, great things that prosper the community. In this case, prosper youth. And that led to, just some problem solving opportunity. Kids came to the table. There was a design charrette, and they were able to, you know, kind of well, actually be a part of that process of designing the skate plaza. I thought that was a key point, because
I don't skateboard. I never skateboarded. So it's their skate plaza, so they had to really be involved in the design of it. While interviewing captain Gilbert here at the Apex Skate Park, we were joined by three of the kids who use the park pretty much on a daily basis. Yes, sir. Including a 15 year old named Storm. Okay. And how long have you been skating? About
three years. Okay. What what made you start skating? What was the interest? I did it when I was a kid, and then I stopped, and I started back up when this park opened.
So the the park inspired you to start back up? Yes. Okay. So do do you have a lot of friends who have the same kind of story? Kind of. Yes. Yeah. It gave us somewhere to be that wasn't like quote unquote illegal to skate. So it was pretty good. So is that a problem you're running into before just finding a place to skate where you wouldn't get into trouble? Yes. There's
very few parks here. So this is one of the best.
So so that meant in order to get to a skate park where it was a, you know, a legit facility where you were allowed to skate, you had to leave town. Mhmm. Yes. Gotcha. So how often do you come out here? Nearly every day. Yep. If I'm not sick or injured, I'm here every day.
So is the park free? I mean, what what are the requirements to get in? It is free. And and that was, one of the things when they were planning this this, plaza. They wanted to be different. And the whole problem solving process, if we made it a fee to get in, I believe we would still be answering those same calls today. And because some some kids just can't afford it, and, so it's it's best to make it keep it open. Yeah. And, so it is free. Anybody can use it. Come here. It's open twenty four hours, which is a really great thing. So, one of the things we were experiencing at closing at at midnight, we had a lot of, adults that were working maybe second shift or even third shift, and they would get off and wanted to get some recreation time in. So if it was closed, they were coming out, and we didn't wanna run them off. We wanted them to really enjoy the plaza. So went back to council, and and they were really in support of what we were trying to get done, and they made it twenty four hour access. There's a train door. That's louder than skateboard wheels.
So, I mean, how how We'll wait just a minute. Okay. Various listings and directories online turned up about 50 skate parks in North Carolina, but that number might be way off and probably lumps in the public and private skate parks together. But as more and more municipalities learn about the legitimate resources that are out there to help in their construction, the more interest there seems to be in these public skate parks. Data from the Tony Hawk Foundation showed that they've put grants into at least 572 skate parks in The US, including a handful in North Carolina, like the skate parks in Greensboro and Hendersonville. The foundation also offers technical assistance. The city of Morganton, North Carolina is right now plotting out a skate park that has actually reached out to the Tony Hawk Foundation. This municipal project is pre construction right now. They've held a number of public meetings with skateboarders, business people, sponsors, and so on. And they've just hired a contractor to design the park based on that input. Here's the city's parks and rec director, Rob Wimpler. Currently, we have,
selected a contractor, and we have had multiple public meetings before and after we've selected the contractor. Right now, they have just finished the latest design feature based on the last input that was gathered from the public meeting. We kind of had an idea, we were looking at what's called a hybrid plaza style. So that's kind of where we are right now. And so what's a hybrid plaza design? What does that mean? It's kind of you alluded earlier when you're talking about the downtown areas and then skateboarders skating on their areas with steps and flat areas, maybe sidewalk extensions, things like that. That's kind of your plaza style. Okay. And with a hybrid, to call it a hybrid form would be to incorporate in some transitions like some bowls and some mini ramps and some other things. So you want it to kind of look like maybe a downtown,
you know, plaza open area, but also it's got the feel of, you know, transitioning bowls and and where they can do tricks and things like that. It. So is is that how this, kinda got started? Kind kind of, were there complaints from business owners? Or was this the kind of thing where the community came to the city and said, you know, what's the solution here? Is a skate park a feasible idea? What's what's sort of the birth of all of this?
I think some of that. I think there's obviously some issues with skaters, skating in areas, that can damage concrete areas, steps, handrails, things like that and not just downtown at our park areas as well. And that's one thing we've been able to realize is and with these folks at the meetings that a skate park can be designed to withstand those kind of things.
That's important. Hugely important. To make the skate park a place that doesn't feel too clean or laboratory like or removed from the spots that skaters would naturally enjoy out in the wild, you You know, it should have character and look like something a skater might improvise off of, instead of it just being a collection of ramps. As Winkler just said, handrails and steps have the right appeal. But Pete Whitley with the Tony Hawk Hawk Foundation added some things that I hadn't thought about when it came to planning and design and use. And we get to that after some chat about how skaters relate to the park that they get in their community. Do do you see when, when skate parks open up when public skate parks open up that, there is a a pretty quick, by and large, willingness from the skating community to take it seriously and adopt that as their new spot versus, you know I I I I could see sort of, like, a loyalty to a certain spot that you're accustomed to skating to, a place that's always kinda worked out for you even if it's not the place where you should be. Maybe it's somebody else's private property or, you know, in in attracting kids, and and getting them to buy into this new community investment. Do do you see it play out that way?
Yeah. It's some mostly. We do recognize that there's a lot of skaters out there who who are of a certain age or mindset that skateboarding is a street recreational. It's a street thing. And Right. And that's where it's authentic. And skateboarding in a skate park is a little bit sanitary, and you have to skate around kids on, you know, kids trading Pokemon cards, their scooters. The scooters. Yeah. That's that's such a thing. Yeah. It kind of so so there's a lot of you know, there's plenty of skate parks where you would never show up with a scooter because that skate park is is essentially owned by the local skaters who, you know, set a certain kind of expectation. Like, when you come here, you come here to skate hard, and that's what this place is about. It's a gnarly skate park, and there's lots of big tricks that happen here. And we're not gonna tolerate, you know, shenanigans. You can't throw your trash on the ground at this place. We will kick you out. And and those parts, you know, they're kinda rough and tumble sometimes. And a lot of times, the parts that are built out in places that, are not very visible. You know? They're out on the outskirts of town in places that are designed specifically not to annoy anybody, you know, in response to nimbees or whatever. You know? They get put out in the middle of nowhere, and then the kids who can get out there are out there all the time, and they end up kind of taking over. Sometimes that's great, and sometimes it's not. And, you know, the difference between kind of this teenage utopia where where the kids are good citizens and they really take a lot of ownership and stewardship over the over the space versus, Lord of the Flies, you know, where where they're not, you know, they're just doing whatever they wanna do Right. Yeah. Is is kind of a lot of times is is a result of what kind of advocacy and what kind of response the city had to its advocates when the local skaters first stepped up to that podium and said, hey. We wanna work with you guys about doing the skate park idea we have. You know, if the city says, yeah. Yeah. What what's the minimum we can do to, appease these kids so that they can they'll be happy versus this is a great opportunity. What's the most awesome thing we can do for the community? That that sort of reluctance or or acceptance are in the skate park being being kind of build it and turn away versus, build it and have something really exciting for the community grow out of that. A generation of young people who who are engaged civically and are willing to take their experience and advocacy to a new level by joining the Chamber of Commerce or starting a business in town or even just sticking around, you know. So, you know, calling the place home.
Whitley said the Tony Hawk Foundation doesn't recommend any stuffy supervision at the skate parks. They also don't recommend fees or waivers or anything similar that might create a barrier or hesitancy to use the park. They don't even like fences and closing the park. They they want something that feels natural and inviting and open with creative design. It doesn't have to be generic.
Something that, has lots of playful sculptural elements in it, skateable art, skate parks with that aren't rectangular, you know, that have natural elements, boulders and and trees in them and all kinds of other stuff. You know, there's really a lot of interesting design work going on in skate parks right now, and it's a it's a good time to be looking at skate parks that maybe aren't what you would normally envision. You know, something that really reflects your local community, reflects your history. Maybe there's something about that site that, is notable that can be reflected in the hardscape. All of these things, you can you can turn any kind of thing into a skateable thing if you have the right designer and the will to do it. And, and so and that can really mean a lot to the skaters too to feel like this is our skate park. It's unique to us, and we have tricks for this place, and it's our place.
And, and when we have people who come to visit to skate, we're proud of it. And so for anybody wondering what that looks like, are there any standout skate parks in The US that, that you would recommend? You know, may maybe pictures online or anything that people can can do to research? Oh,
sure. Yeah. There's there's hundreds hundreds of them. It really depends on what it is that you're looking for. We we could provide you samples with, skate parks that, that feature bioswales in them that are built using sort of, you know, even they can't certify LEED certify at Skatepark because it's not, it's an open facility,
but are built using And that was that was another one of my questions about, you know, the the sort of, stormwater angle on it, the the the hard, you know, impervious surface. So so that's something that's that's, that's being integrated is sort of the, the low impact design, the bioretention,
swells. Right. Yeah. Just sheet draining to places in the park that then go into open trails and things like that. That's a popular way to handle water. There's lots of fun stuff there. Once you see that a skate park doesn't have to be 35,000 square feet and cost, you know, dollars 1,600,000.0 nor does it have to be a tiny little corner of a parking lot that nobody cares about. There's lots of flexibility there. Vancouver, Washington has six or seven skate spots, and these are just micro parks for skateboarding. They they have one single element, and they're a little bulb out or kind of a node along a jogging path or something like that. And they're all over town, and it's not each one has cost relatively little to build, and yet, they have broad coverage across their whole community through these microsites, and then they still have their kind of flagship anchor neighborhood skate parks that are about 10,000 square feet. So cool. And and the signature elements that we see in parks that reflect local history and things are really exciting. Another skate park that was basically, inspired by the foundation of the building that was there before. I think it was a community building, large community building. It was long gone, but they found the blueprints, and then they created a skate park to reflect the blueprint of the of the building that was there. So now there's some historical context. I love it. A skate park in, California was built on the site of the old train station. And so now through the skate park, you can skate an old trestle, and there's sort of train track type elements in it. That's so cool.
Back to the Apex Skate Park, which covers about 13,000 square feet. That's a pretty good size. And it's and also, it's all concrete. I mean, there's a there's a point of that too. Right? That sort of quality parks are concrete parks. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, again, the town made a tremendous investment,
and they wanted it to be, sustainable and, and kind of not much maintenance. I know there's maintenance that comes with any project, but I think they did a lot of research to to ensure that the state, you know, maintenance free for the most part.
Cameras, I mean, is there on-site, like, in person supervision? Or how does that part play out here? Yeah. No, personnel,
stay here to to manage it. However, we do have cameras strategically located, and we do monitor those those cameras. And, you know, it's it's dual purpose. One purpose is to watch out and just kind of give a if there's a medical situation, we can we can monitor it and then get the appropriate, responders out here. But then the other part is is that what Storm said to keep it safe. We want it to be a safe plaza for everyone to come and enjoy. It's a family skate plaza. So, as I talked earlier, you have skateboarders, scooters. Do they do they have any rollerbladers out here sometimes? Really. Usually. Yeah. Really. Older people are rollerblades.
Winkler also regards that diversity in recreation in plotting out the skate park. Recreation is different
for everybody. And we wanna be a town that can offer a variety of things because, that's what sets us apart. And I think that's what will will bring people into our town and and and hopefully bring people to wanna relocate to our town. Sure. And
in terms of attracting people to the skate park, have you guys talked about maybe holding events there, contests, things like that?
Yes, we have. And then that's kind of been our kind of leader of the process with the community. I think we're going to get involved and maybe try to do, of course, the groundbreaking opening ceremonies and things like that, but but maybe try to do some events and bring in some maybe some pro skaters or some things like that to to to do some some events. Definitely.
For all the enthusiasm, there's one default question that seems to come up when city councils are asked their support for a skate park. And fair enough, it's all about due diligence, and you might be guessing where this is going. And I asked Whitley from the Tony Hawk Foundation about it. In reading news stories, this is a specific one. You know, in reading news stories about city or or county governments getting into this to the skate park business, I always see someone raise the question about liability, and that's one of the first ones. It's, you know, what if a kid using our park falls and gets hurt and his parents sue us? Are are you familiar with that concern, and is it overblown? Is it legit? Is it how does that play out?
Well, yeah. There we're familiar with the concern. It's popular. It's popular in every state. Some states treat it a little bit differently than other states. Skateboarding is, by and large, on many states is considered a hazardous recreational activity. And, and so in the in the states' recreational use statute, it should describe. I think that I'm confident, in fact, that if if somebody were to do that research, they would find, oh, well, there's no there's there's virtually no risk. There's lots of reasons why skateboarding looks risky, looks like, risky activities. And then there's also lots of factors that make it, that reduce that risk. And I'm not expecting a risk assessor or a city attorney to, go out and watch skateboarding for for two months to understand the activity. But I think there's plenty of research out there and probably case law study and and, a history. I think maybe there's been less than five, in the past fifteen years in the in the nation. So most of the risk that happens around skateboarding is when somebody is skateboarding a loading dock or a place that is not sanctioned for skateboarding. And, you know, there's glass or there's nails and wood or something like that, and it poses a risk to the to the person who is happens to be there. And then they say, well, why why didn't you clean up this glass? You know, my kid was skating across the hotel parking lot, and there was glass, and they fell and got stitches, and I went to the hotel to pay for it. That's that's that's the kind of risk that happens, but it's not because of skateboarding. If the kid would have fallen in into the glass regardless, it it it would have been a lawsuit. It had nothing to do specifically with the skateboard.
So if we give, if we give kids a a a well maintained, safe place to be Right. Sure. Absolutely.
The there there's really kinda two ways to look at risk, and risk is risk is defined by municipalities as as largely as, like, legal risk. Right? Risk to the municipality. But but risk to the public is, like, existential threat. Right?
That's right.
And so when we don't have a skate park because of legal risk, what we're doing is we're putting our local youth at existential risk by having them skate wherever. We're not preventing skateboarding by not having the skate park. We're just saying, we're not gonna do a skate park. You're you're gonna have to skate wherever or take up baseball. And so when these kids go out and they go skating in the street, then they, you know, then they're becoming a nuisance and they're getting tickets, so there's they're accepting some legal risk. The local businesses have to, you know, chew them off or do whatever call the cops or do whatever. So now there's a financial impact for police calls for skateboarding. The police come, and then they talk to the kids, and that's staff time. And the police wanna do important work, and the kids don't wanna be hassled for skateboarding, of all things. Mhmm. And so if they write tickets to sort of send a message, maybe that kid can't afford that ticket or knows that he's gonna get a whooping if he takes the ticket home for another skateboarding ticket, and so he buries it. And now you have a kid who's on the cusp of becoming an adult who's already being conditioned to ignore tickets and ignore and and avoid the police and and hide from from authority. And that's just like, that is risk. Right? That's, like, real risk, and it's really no way for a community to treat its young people. And so so there's there's all kinds of different risks. And when the city is talking about liability, I think that it should be it should be in the context of all of the risk. If you wanna consider risk, consider all of the risk. I had a I had a parks director tell me once. She had a park where where helmets were required, and and I had said to her I had said, well, what what happens if the kid shows up and he's he or she is skating in the skate park and they don't have a helmet? And the parks director says, oh, we kicked them out. And they said, well, what where do they go? And she said, well, I think that they go across the street to the parking lot over at the Kentucky Fried Chicken or whatever, for us to understand skateboarding differently to keep the kids safe. And yet when you kick them out of the place where they can skate without cars and without harassing anybody, and they go across the street to the Kentucky fried chicken parking lot, now they're skating around cars, and they're annoying the the business owners, and they're getting in the way of the public. And they're putting themselves at risk, and they're still not wearing helmets anyway. So so haven't you actually increased the risk? And she said, and she was candid about it, and I appreciate this, but it was a little bit cynical. She said, when they're over there, it's not my problem. I don't have to worry about them when they're across the street. It's not my responsibility. And I said, well, okay. You know, I I can appreciate that, but it's not a very holistic way of approaching community health.
Captain Gilbert. In most communities, there's always been a disconnect with skateboarders and police. So when they saw police and skateboarders getting along and saying, hey, we need to come together and and build this skate plaza for the greater good of the skaters, the police, and the entire community. It's a bridge. And I think once they start seeing it, more people start buying into it, and then here we are today talking about it. So Yeah. And a lot of, different municipalities are calling and saying, how did you guys do this? And, it was real simple. Trust. Yeah. And here's Storm. For all of us who are here every day, it wouldn't be here without him. So it it gives you a different outlook on police officers and skateboarding and their relationship.
And do you see a lot of your friends kind of adopting the same Yes. Kinda attitude? Yeah? Yes. Yeah. How much against? I feel the same way as him. It's good to have police and skateboarders connect with each other rather than dislike or have hatred.
So what what's your name? I'm Sam Boudreau. How old are you? 15. How long have you been skating? Around the same time as Storm, like three years. And what what's your name? Cole. Cole, what's your last name? Friedrich. And how old are you? 12. How long you been skating? Two years in July. Yeah. Yeah. How often you out here? Pretty often? Yeah. Every day. Yeah. And so one thing to kind of paint a contrast, you know, what would happen if this just suddenly went away? I mean, what what what how big of a deal is this to to you guys and your friends?
It would be a pretty big deal. Like, yeah. Because a lot of people come here everyday and, like, have fun skating. So it would be hard.
Yeah. I think it would definitely be hard because, like, every single day I'm out here just spending a lot of time here, more than my house, to be honest. But if it if it definitely went away, it would probably be bad because, like, there's only a select few parks that you can go around here. And and this park is free, and you can come literally anytime you want because there's lights that light up the entire skate park. So you really can be here all night if you really want. So it would definitely
be pretty terrible if it just completely went away. What do you think? Yeah. I agree with him. This is the only free and safe skate park that we have. And if it wasn't here, it'd be life changing. This is an outlet to a lot of people. When they're angry, they're sad, they come here. And it'd be really left in it if it wasn't here.
One thing I've learned that this this skateboard community is I mean, they're phenomenal. I mean, it it just they're just, like, really they tell a story to me and what that is. They can fall down and get back up over and over again, and I think that's a lesson for all of us in life. I I really enjoy watching them. I come out here and just sit and watch. It's really cool to
see.
A cool ending to this? Captain Gilbert and the skater he mentioned at the beginning, his name is Tracy Stallworth, were invited to the White House to tell their story. The city of Morganton hopes to have its skate park ready in late fall or early winter of this year. Here's a final word from Winkler, the city's parks and rec director. Sometimes
the the the skate community gets a bad rap. You know, it's it's because they're they're tearing up stuff. Everybody thinks or they're they're out skating real late and you get a lot of, you know, graffiti and things like that. But I tell you, I I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised when we started meeting with the public and our groups of how, how these guys really, love their their sport and and respect, you know, just just the respect between us and and the city and and the citizens. It just made it a very easy transition to work with. These guys really I think, one thing one thing that I'm really proud of is the collaboration with with the community and the government and then the private firm. How well, everybody's kind of work together. That that's that's what's really is a great takeaway for me because it really shows how cities, can work with the private sector and their citizens to really maximize a park for for as you go forward into the future.
Thanks for listening, and thanks to everyone who took part in this episode. We'd appreciate it if you would share this or forward it on to anyone you think would like it or learn from it. If you have any feedback or anything you'd like to add, maybe there's an angle I just didn't cover here, you know, please reach out. I'm at bbrown@atnclm.org, or on Twitter. The handle is at muni equation, @muniequation. I'll have links to all kinds of resources related to this episode in the show notes at soundcloud.com/municipalequation. It's also where you can find all the past episodes. Municipal Equation is a biweekly podcast from the North Carolina League of Municipalities online @nclm.org. If you like what we're doing or if you liked any particular episode, please let us know why in a friendly review on iTunes, and please spread the word. Thanks as always. This is Ben Brown. I'll talk to you soon.
