Erie Times News Articles

Past to Present

Highlights: City unveils proposed $300,000 renovation
Date: Tuesday, July 5, 2004 6 p.m.
Location: MLK Center, Green Room
Contact: Tina Mengine, 814-870-1240

Erie, PA – The City of Erie will host a neighborhood meeting with west bayfront residents to discuss proposed renovations to the City’s Bayview Park.
The $300,000 project is expected to include the addition of picnic pavilions, renovation of the existing softball field, landscaping, additional parking, bleachers, a 10,000 square foot concrete skatepark and other park amenities such as water fountains and public phones.
The City will hear input from the neighborhood’s residents during this public planning session.

City rolls out skate park idea

Published: October 17. 2004 6:00AM

BY KEVIN FLOWERS
kevin.flowers@timesnews.com 

Boarders say they'd flip over free park
Erie's bikers, boarders and skaters could be in line for a new place to sharpen their leaps, flips and other tricky maneuvers — the city's first skate park.

Mayor Rick Filippi's administration is applying for an $80,000 grant through the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

If the city receives the money, it plans to use it to create a free skate park officials hope would be frequented by skateboarders, in-line skaters, and BMX bicycle enthusiasts.

The park would be owned and maintained by the city.

"I'd go,'' said 8-year-old Mike Berdis, a Chestnut Street resident and third-grader at Cathedral Center. Berdis and his friends ride their skateboards a few times a week at Shebang, an indoor skate park at 2411 W. 12th Street in Millcreek.

"We wouldn't have to pay and it would be easy for kids to get there and everything,'' said Berdis, who idolizes world-class skateboarder and X-Games gold medalist Bucky Lasek. "Sounds like it would be really cool.''

Tammy Roche, the city's manager of cultural affairs, said the city's aim is to provide a state-of-the-art, safe place for skaters and bicycle riders to hang out.

City Council unanimously approved a resolution last week giving city officials the go-ahead to apply for the DCNR grant. City officials also believe the park will keep many youths and young adults from frequenting city streets and private property with their bikes, boards and skates.

"The mayor's done some focus groups with Erie youth and has had a lot of requests for this type of park,'' Roche said. "We see street skating on private property, in parking lots, and the activity at times has caused some damage to the property. This will be a designated, fun place for skaters to go.''

DCNR spokeswoman Gretchen Leslie said the money comes from the department's Community Conservation Partnerships Program. The grant recipients will likely be announced in spring 2005, Leslie said.

Roche said there are "two finalists'' for the skate park's location — Hagerty Park at West 32nd Street and Schaper Avenue, or a vacant plot of land behind the Boys and Girls Club of Erie, 1515 East Lake Road. The city has yet to make a final decision on the site, she said.

The park would be equipped with specially built riding banks, large pipes and speed bumps that skaters and riders can enjoy.

Two companies — Bitting Recreation of Harrisburg and General Recreation Inc., with representatives throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware — have helped city officials with the skate park's design. Both companies distribute and manufacture skate park equipment.

The park would also likely include benches, picnic tables, handrails and curbs so that it "looks kind of like a natural streetscape,'' Roche said. "These parks are designed by companies who use skaters themselves to help them with the designs. That means skaters will have input on the actual layout and construction.''

That kind of input is important, or else the skate park won't have "credibility'' with serious skaters and riders, said Jerami Baightal, 21, a longtime in-line skater who works as an instructor and supervisor at Shebang.

"The city has the responsibility to make (the skate park) something that's not a marketing scheme or an attempt to capitalize on a trend,'' Baightal said. "They need to do their research, think about what kids would want and how the kids will want to use it. It's got to be done through the heart.''

Roche said the city has done its homework on skate parks. Roche said Shebang owner Jim Fischer has been consulted, and Jim Casella, an assistant director of public works, visited a Pittsburgh-area skate park a few months ago to bring back ideas.

City Council President Jim Thompson said he likes the idea, but is worried about liability.

"This will be a facility that we make, with ramps and jumps,'' Thompson said. "If these kids hit the ground or get hurt trying to do cartwheels in the air, what happens then?''

Roche said the city's insurance carrier has assured Filippi's administration the park will require no additional insurance. The city's current liability insurance will cover the skate park, Roche said.

"We found out the city takes the least amount of risk if we treat the park like we do all our other public recreational facilities, with general hours and signs that say 'Use the facility at your own risk,''' Roche said. "Just as we do a basketball court or playground.''

Another city resident and in-line skater, 15-year-old Patrick Bliss, said a city-owned skate park would work "if it has challenging stuff in it.

"Skating's something you do to release your mind,'' Bliss said. "Give us (a park) where there's new ramps and all the stuff that helps people do what they can't do now.''

City gets grant for skate park

Published: April 22. 2005 7:00AM

Thirteen-year-old Justin Thomas said he and his friends would like an outdoor skate park where they can grind, lipslide and hard flip.

A bunch of men in business suits, including Mayor Rick Filippi, want to give Justin and his friends that opportunity by building the city's first skate park for inline skaters, BMX riders and skateboarders.

Filippi held a news conference Wednesday to announce the city had received an $82,900 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources for the project and a $65,000 grant from the federal Community Development Block Grant program.

"Park aesthetics may include such features as bowls, half-pipes, rails, verts and grinds,"Filippi said. "Whatever that is," he added with a smile.

To accept the grant, the city must match the state grant with in-kind labor services, such as installing the park, said Tammy Roche, the manager of the Mayor's Office on Cultural Affairs. City Council will be asked to vote on the issue in the next few months, Filippi said.


The skate park will likely be built in Bayview Park, at West Second and Cherry streets. The site, next to the Bayfront Promenade, overlooks the bay and is next to a playground and Bayview baseball field.

There is also a chance the skate park might be built near East Seventh and Marne streets instead, Bruce Dougherty, bureau chief of parks. Both the location and design of the park will be decided with the help of teens like Justin, Roche said.

Jim Fischer, the owner of a Millcreek Township indoor skate park called Shebang, said the city needs to do much more research before building a park, and he said the city's free park will compete with his private business.

Fischer said many cities have had trouble maintaining free outdoor skate parks and have shut them down. He also had questions about how the city would light the park and how safety would be assured there.

Roche said she knows many questions still must be answered about the park, but said the city's insurance carrier has assured officials that a skate park won't significantly affect its insurance, as long as the skate park is operated like any other park.


Roche also said that it's likely the park will close at dusk -- just like other parks in the city -- and won't have lights.

Skate park worries council
Liability, need among issues city leaders have with proposed facility

Published: August 18. 2005 7:00AM

BY GEORGE MILLER
george.miller@timesnews.com 

City Council has put some scrapes on a proposed concrete skate park.

The Rick Filippi administration is proposing construction of the $250,000 structure as part of an overall $338,900 plan to renovate Bayview Park, at West Second and Cherry streets.

"It will really create a first-class facility down there for the neighbors and the region," said Tina Mengine, the mayor's top aide, outlining the project at council's Finance Committee meeting Wednesday.

But council members raised concerns about the city's liability for injuries that will likely occur at the skate park.

"The young people do need a place to go," Councilwoman Rubye Jenkins-Husband said. "How do we do it in a way that we address the liability issue, because that is a major issue here."

Administration officials said the skate park would be insured just like any other park and said they didn't foresee a problem.

But Council President Jim Thompson said he'd like to see written assurances.

Thompson, who said he is personally opposed to the skate park, noted the 10,000-square-foot facility is to be built below ground level and said it may serve as a hangout.

"You've got tunnels and areas where kids could hang out and party," he said. "What is the liability?"

Council members also questioned whether a skate park would be needed there if one were part of a possible $30 million Salvation Army community center.

Local Salvation Army officials plan to submit to the national organization a funding application for the center by Sept. 30. Meanwhile, the Erie chapter is scrambling to find a home for the facility. Salvation Army officials had proposed building the 15- to 20-acre facility at McClelland Park, but abandoned that plan last week in the face of strong neighborhood opposition.

Mengine said that if the Salvation Army project were funded, it would still be several years before it's completed.

"In our community, there is a void for this type of facility," she said. "Two facilities are not going to be adequate."

Tammy Roche, manager of the mayor's Office of Cultural Affairs, said the demand for a skate park has been increasing nationwide.

She said the skate park would be for skateboarding, BMX bikes and in-line skates.

"It's a legitimate recreational activity," Roche said. "It's exploding across the country. The city has an obligation to provide them with a safe recreational facility. We have to recognize we have a young generation of kids that are coming up and this is their sport of choice."

Roche said the concrete facility would be the first in the state. Most are made of steel, she said.

As to complaints that the skate park will create problems from kids who hang out there, Roche said skate parks in other cities haven't had that experience.

"But certainly we want to look into it and prevent it, as much as possible," she said. "Kids are going to hang out. You just have to be smart about it."

Roche said she hopes to provide answers to council's concerns and hopes for a City Council vote in September.

Council must agree to allocate the money for the project.

The city has received an $82,900 state grant for the skate park. Other funding sources include $55,000 from the city's block grant funds; $151,000 from Project 70 funds; and $50,000 from community partnerships.

Other proposed park improvements include a picnic pavilion, a renovated ball field for softball and Little League, refurbished basketball and tennis courts, increased parking, more park benches, perimeter lighting and programming.

In other matters, council worried that the city may not have enough money in some reserve funds to help cover the city's projected $2.6 million deficit this year.

Filippi had proposed taking $1 million each from the sewer and refuse reserve funds.

Councilwoman Jessica Horan-Kunco urged the administration to look at making other cuts in expenses in case the reserves are insufficient.

Mengine said there is sufficient money in the refuse reserve, but she said it will be tight in the sewer reserve account, depending partly on stepped-up efforts to collect delinquent accounts.

"If we can continue that, we will be fine," she said.

Thompson predicted increases in sewer and refuse rates in 2006 and blamed the administration.

"Every reserve has been looted" to cover budget deficits, he said.

Mom's plea: Give kids skate park

Published: July 13. 2006 7:00AM

What follows below is a presentation I made to Erie City Council last fall.

I re-submitted the following again to the new council via e-mail. I have yet to get a reply.

As a family that travels to the likes of Butler, Pittsburgh, Ashtabula, Dunkirk and even Canada to skate, I can attest, if you build it, they will come.

Dear Council,

I came here last Wednesday night to pretty much size you up. I'd been told already the yeas and the nays and who my targets should be. I learned a little bit about all of you, some of your likes and dislikes and what certain individuals held a passion for.
Being the mother of three kids, my oldest an art major at Collegiate, Erie has got her covered. We have great museums and galleries.
My youngest is the playground aficionado and we have personally visited at least half of (the city's 54) parks.
Then there is the third child.
He doesn't play football or soccer. He is one of the many kids left behind, if you will.
Instead he's often called a vandal, hoodlum or punk, simply because he has no place to go.
On any given day school lets out, drive past West Eighth Street. Kids from Emerson and Strong Vincent begin to congregate on my front porch with their boards.
Some days they set up their ramps in my driveway. Other days I play taxi and haul them all downtown. This is where the title of vandal comes in. They resort to competing with cars and pedestrians, creating hazards in private business areas and public right of ways, skating on whatever and wherever they can get away with for the moment.
It is a fact that their one true passion is prohibited. It was brought to my attention by the local police that this is everywhere and is even stated in city ordinance.
These kids have been told to get off their boards simply skating from point A to B.
I ask you council where are these kids to go?
These kids are not out drinking or drugging or stealing. These kids are ardent about what they do, so much so that they are willing to subject themselves to name-calling and harassment from local authorities that do not understand their drive.
This is an individualist sport. It's between them and the board.
It's about achieving personal goals once you've hurled yourself down a set of stairs and landed it to skate another day.
If at first they don't succeed, that staircase becomes the monster to beat. They will continue until they have conquered it. I have here signatures in support of a skate park. They vary from local students, to registered voters and professional business owners.

Kim Berdis
Erie

Needed: A home

BY KARA RHODES
kara.rhodes@timesnews.com 

Published: August 04. 2006 7:00AM


In Harborcreek, skateboarders are scraping cement at a long-closed Burger King.

In Millcreek, they're carving at McDowell High School.

In Erie, you'll find them grinding on East Avenue.

Kids on skateboards take to the streets every summer. And every summer, police shoo them away from public parks, private residences and parking lots of private businesses that don't want the insurance liability.

The ritual has been amplified this year by the closing of Shebang Skate Park.

Shebang, which had been the only such facility in the region, went out of business this spring, leaving skaters only the streets, sidewalks and parking lots to practice their sport.

Skateboarder Ryan Hoover, 15, and his friends enjoy the parking lot at the former Burger King at Buffalo and Nagle roads in Harborcreek.

"Kids who play football have football fields," Hoover said. "Kids who play basketball have basketball courts, but kids who skate have no skate park. We just want somewhere to go."

There was talk of a skate park being built in the city of Erie in 2005.

Then-Mayor Rick Filippi held a press conference about a $82,900 state grant and $65,000 federal grant his administration secured toward the building of the facility, which officials planned to put in Bayview Park. City Council held a well-attended public hearing, at which petitions from skateboarders were presented. Bayview Park neighbors, where the construction of a skate park was being considered, voiced concerns about vandalism and late-night noise.

And then?

Nothing. News of the city budget crisis ballooned, and suddenly a skate park wasn't on the talking list.

It hasn't risen to the top of the heap of issues facing current Mayor Joe Sinnott's administration either.

"Should we have a skate park? Absolutely," said Jon Whaley, Sinnott's top aide. "But nothing is in the works right now. There's so much other stuff going on, we haven't had a chance to really research it or look at fundraising opportunities or find a suitable location."

Skate parks: A playground for older kids

While a skate park might not be top of mind for guys in business suits, it is for the kids who know how to do an ollie, rail slide and kick flip.

Thirty-eight percent of 1,177 people who responded to a recent Erie Times-News online poll said a skate park would attract teens to downtown Erie. That was more people than those who said that a dance club, coffee house or concert hall would draw them downtown.

Kim Berdis' 10-year-old son, Michael, made many friends at Shebang. Now, the group of boys practices tricks on homemade jumps and ramps in her West Eighth Street driveway.

"I think a lot of people think of skateboarders as kids causing trouble," Kim Berdis said. "These are good kids, they're all kinds of kids - and they all just want somewhere to go where they're welcome."

Skate parks - or "skate plazas," as some are known -have popped up all over the country, including in the nearby communities of Dunkirk, N.Y.; Willoughby, Ohio; and Ashtabula, Ohio. Both private developers and municipalities have constructed skate parks. Some are free. Some cost money.

The Willoughby park, constructed entirely of steel, was built in 1998, said Brian Katz, the city's director of parks and recreation. Katz said the park cost the city $50,000 to construct. He said the park, which is free to use, is popular with skateboarders.

"It's used every day," Katz said. "I consider it a playground for kids who have outgrown the typical playground. Instead of slides and swings, it has ramps and rails."

Katz said the city decided to build the skate park because skateboarders were starting to damage curbs and steps in historic downtown Willoughby.

"We were getting complaints, so we decided to give them their own facility," he said. "It has really cut down on complaints."

Liability was the top issue when considering a skate park, Katz said.


But the city's insurance carrier agreed to cover the skate park under the city's existing policy as long as it was treated like all other city parks, Katz said.

That meant the skate park had to be unsupervised, open only during daylight hours and have a sign posted that use was at the skater's own risk, Katz said.

"People understand it's at their own risk," Katz said. "We've never gotten sued. We've never been threatened with a lawsuit."

There's never been any serious injury at the park, he said.

Police open to skate park
Police in Erie and Millcreek said they would support the building of a skate park in the Erie area. While they don't consider skateboarders a major problem, Erie Chief Steve Franklin and Millcreek Capt. Don Tombaugh said they do get complaints from homeowners and business owners about kids on skateboards damaging their properties.

The sidewalks and parking lots around Millcreek schools seem the most frequent destination point for skateboarders in Millcreek, Tombaugh said.

"It would be a plus for the youth to have somewhere to go," Tombaugh said. "We shoo them away, but there's really no place for them to go."

Franklin said his officers most often find skateboarders in Erie at downtown parking ramps, lots and parks.

"I don't see it as a big problem," Franklin said. "But a skate park would be a good alternative. Anything that gives kids another option is a good thing."


Michael and his friends said they often are asked to move on by police officers when they take their skateboards on the road.

"We love skateboarding,"Michael said. "We're not trying to cause trouble. We just want to go somewhere where no one yells at us."

To build or not to build
Erie forms group to study skate park question

BY GEORGE MILLER
george.miller@timesnews.com 

Published: November 02. 2006 7:00AM

Emmanuel Lemire, 13, walked into the meeting with his skateboard in hand.

He and 40 others -- skateboarders and friends and family members -- urged city officials to build a skate park.

Lemire and many of the others left Bagnoni Council Chambers at City Hall with some hope because a committee was formed to look into ways to help the city build the skate park.

Lemire was among the first to sign up.

"I'm a little hopeful," he said. "I think having a skate park is a great idea because there is nowhere else to go."

Fred Rush, city community initiatives coordinator, said Mayor Joe Sinnott's administration is still considering the skate park.

"The idea is not dead," he said.

But he said the city is financially strapped and needs some assistance, perhaps from private-public partnerships and sponsorships.

"That helps stretch the resources we have," Rush said. "Let's make it a community project because we don't have the ability to carry it out on our own."

The city has a grant of $82,900 from the state to build the skate park, but it expires Dec. 31, 2008. The city had also planned originally to use $65,000 in federal Community Development funds, but transferred it to other projects, which officials could not readily identify.

"Everybody says, 'That is not enough,'" Rush said, referring to the money available to build the park. "Now we've got to find other ways to supplement that."

That will be the panel's job.

Kim Berdis, who has two skateboarding sons, said she hopes the project can at least be discussed. She said she was frustrated in previous attempts to find out its status.

Sinnott's predecessor, Rick Filippi, obtained the state grant and was planning to build a skate park at Bayview Park at West Second and Cherry streets.

City Councilwoman Jessica Horan-Kunco organized the meeting to find out the status of the grant and project.

Tom Fuhrman, executive director of the Lake Erie Region Conservancy, said the "ball got dropped" during the change of administrations, but he is more hopeful now.

The hour-long discussion included possible locations for the park and liability issues.

Not everyone was satisfied.

"I believe this meeting didn't go anywhere," said skateboarder David Graham, 16. "They are trying their best. The administration doesn't seem like giving an answer. They are putting all the work on us."

He said a skate park is needed.

"We have nowhere else to go," he said. "We get kicked off properties. We get yelled at and threatened. It's a horrible problem."

City, teens brainstorm on skate park

Published: November 22. 2006 6:00AM

City officials on Tuesday held another meeting with local residents pushing for a skate park to be built in the Erie area.

Erie City Councilwoman Jessica Horan-Kunco said about 35 people attended the brainstorming session at Erie City Hall, including about 15 teenage skateboarders.

"We have concerned parents and others who are committed to seeing this project happen," Horan-Kunco said. "We talked about potential sites. We also talked about seeing if Millcreek Township would be willing to partner with us on the skate park."

The city has a grant of $82,900 from the state to build the skate park, but it expires Dec. 31, 2008. The city will have to find more money in order to build the park, or find a private partner willing to help out financially.