Skateboard Proponent Lobbies For Park Teenager Planning Drive To Collect Signatures

A Shadle Park teenager’s dream of a skateboard park in Spokane may be inching closer to reality.

Bruce Neusse, 18, is planning to circulate petitions aimed at convincing the City Council to dedicate park land to skateboarders.

Neusse hasn’t started gathering signatures or approached the council, but Mayor Jack Geraghty already is asking the Park Board to study the idea.

“We go to great lengths to provide basketball courts and other amenities,” Geraghty said during a meeting this week, adding that some skateboarders make the sport look like an “art form.”

“Hopefully, we’ll see something in the near future,” said Councilman Jeff Colliton, who also serves on the Park Board.

Two teenagers who read about Neusse’s proposal in the newspaper asked the council to take it seriously.

“We get in trouble anywhere we go to skateboard. Schools, churches … They all kick us out,” said Nathaniel Eng, 14. Eng said he knew the plan’s supporters could “fill up the whole auditorium.”

Right now, skateboarders must drive to Coeur d’Alene for a place built exclusively for skateboards.

Neusse said he plans to soon start gathering signatures on two petitions - one for registered voters and one for avid skateboarders.

, DataTimes