Skate park could be shut down
Spirit Lake residents complain about noise, cussing, smoking, drinking and drugs

Dave Roser watches kids walk past his house all day long headed toward Spirit Lake’s skate park.
Though the city’s considering tearing out the park because of complaints about noise, among other things, Roser said the sounds of skateboard slamming off the ramps and onto the concrete are like music.
“I love the sound of this place,” said the Presbyterian pastor, whose home is near City Park. “I listen to this and I say, there’s another kid that’s not in trouble.”
Roser and nearly 50 other Spirit Lake residents of all ages gathered at the skate park Wednesday to come up with solutions to the problems Mayor Roxy Martin said are cause for shutting the park down: Complaints about swearing teens, drug and alcohol use, vandalism and bullying.
“It’s just been an ongoing problem,” Martin said.
The mayor said she doesn’t have anything against skateboarders – she even enjoys watching the sport on TV and her grandsons skateboard.
The boys aren’t allowed to skate at Spirit Lake’s skate park, though.
Martin said she’s heard several complaints about the skate park and that it’s been nothing but trouble for the city since opening about eight years ago.
Debbie Moore, organizer of the effort to save the skate park, said she talked with Martin about the problems at the skate park.
“I said there’s a lot of good kids that hang out there, too, and there are solutions to problems,” Moore said. She began circulating petitions, collected about 200 signatures and organized a community meeting.
If supporters of the skate park can come up with a plan to curb the problems and complaints from residents, Martin said the city will consider keeping the park open.
She’s not optimistic.
Martin said she’s closed the park down for a couple weeks at a time in the past and skaters have promised to clean up their act and their trash, but haven’t.
The city has fixed the fencing around the skate park numerous times, she said, and the fencing has been cut and torn.
If the park is to stay open, Martin believes the hours must be limited, there needs to be supervision and the trash needs to be picked up.
Someone other than the city must do the baby sitting, she said.
“We don’t have the officers to sit down there and police the kids,” she said.
Moore and other supporters plan to go before the City Council on Sept. 9 to propose alternatives to closing down the skate park.
During Wednesday’s meeting, supporters of the skate park came up with several ideas, from trimming the trees around the skate park to allow for better lighting to recruiting volunteers to clean up broken glass and trash and even check in on the park and report problems to the police.
Some suggested stricter enforcement of the town’s curfew, but councilwoman Shelley Tschida said the city often only has one officer on shift at a time. She said officers also have concerns about going into the enclosed skate park by themselves – without backup – to confront troublemakers.
One solution, Moore believes, is making rules for use of the skate park more clear to the teens and enforcing the rules. During Wednesday’s meeting, one teen volunteered to paint a new sign with the rules.
The city is closing the skate park for the entire weekend during the town’s Centennial Celebration, Martin said. The space is needed for other activities, including dancing to the live music planned throughout the weekend, she said.
She plans on re-opening the skate park on Tuesday.
If – and how long – it stays open is yet to be determined, she said.
She’d like to see it moved elsewhere, if not shut down permanently.
“We won’t have that noise element and the liability,” she said. “We do have to pay a lot higher insurance premium because (the skate park) is in there. It’s for the benefit of 10 to 15 kids.”
Moore is determined, though.
“It’s ridiculous to tear down a beautiful skate park like that when there are towns around us scrimping, saving, trying to put money together so their kids have something like this,” she said.
Megan Krizenesky used to be a bored kid in Spirit Lake.
“This is the first place in Spirit Lake that’s actually been built for the kids,” said Krizenesky, now an adult and mother of three. “We have to take care of it.”
She urged the skateboarders gathered at the meeting to take the initiative and take care of their park.
Cam Criswell, a volunteer with Spirit Lake’s Youth Equipped for Success, said adults could come up with solutions, but said the onus should be on the people who use the skate park.
If there are complaints about kids smoking, “Guess what? Don’t do it,” she said. “If there are complaints about swearing, don’t do it. Show some manners. You shouldn’t be swearing in a public park.”
Some suggested that kids will be kids, skate park or no skate park, and tearing out the ramps wouldn’t stop kids from skating or alleviate the problems.
Don Williams, who spearheaded the effort to put in the skate park, said the concerns that have been raised are symptoms of deeper problems in society.
“There was drugs, alcohol, cussing even before these ramps were built,” he said. “This business about the ramps causing the drugs – it’s nothing to do with it.”