Skate park dreams: Elburn teens seeking a place to skate

ELBURN – Seeking signatures on a petition, a group of teenagers knocked on doors in neighborhoods throughout Elburn. The teens' mission – bring a skate park to the village or someplace in the Kaneland area.

Alex Gutierrez, Jacob Anderson, Justin Honshul and Juan Guzman – all students at Kaneland Harter Middle School – said their effort was inspired by an instructor at the school. A GoFundMe page has been set up to help create a park that would cater to those on skates, skateboards and also, perhaps, bikes.

The teens said they have been chased away from a few skating places, and the GoFundMe page states “there isn’t really anywhere to skate.” A similar effort was made years ago, but it never came to fruition. And while the skaters say they understand the attempt could take time and might be difficult, there is reason to believe it could happen. Skate parks exist in Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles.

The GoFundMe page – www.gofundme.com/elburnil – seeks $75,000 to help fund what the skaters called "a dream, all of our dreams." Village leaders in Elburn and Sugar Grove said they hope the effort is successful, but it would be unlikely the villages could spend any money on it.

Elburn Village President Dave Anderson said the question is finance.

“That’s always been the issue,” he said. “And then, a place to have it.”

Sugar Grove Village President Sean Michels said he had talked to the instructor, Rick Banik, who is a paraprofessional at Harter Middle School. He said it sounded familiar, recalling a similar effort about 10 years ago.

He said the village “didn’t have the money at that time, and with what Gov. Bruce Rauner is proposing [local leaders have balked at proposed cuts in the state budget], I don’t think we’ll have money this time.”

Successful efforts in the Tri-Cities have been done with the help of park districts. In Geneva, parks officials stated that the park is a joint venture between the park district, the city of Geneva and Geneva Township. It was built in the early 2000s and is open to skateboarders and BMX and bike riders.

In Batavia, Jim Eby, the park district’s capital projects manager, described an effort that took years. He said the district first started hearing from those who wanted a skate park in the late 1990s. By 2000, a group had done a petition, and the parks board explored the issue. The skate park plan was put into a five-year capital plan. It was dedicated in the summer of 2002.

Eby said the cost was $64,900 for the skate park and $108,000 for the slab and fencing work. He said when he started inviting people to community meetings, as many as 30 people showed up. He said another process started with a bike park, which sits next to the skate park.

“Both are still pretty darn popular,” Eby said.

The options are limited in the Kaneland area. Elburn does not have a park district, and Sugar Grove’s park district is much smaller than those in Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles. Banik said he understands it could be difficult, but he talked to some of the kids in his civics course, and they understand the process will take time.

“I’ve already warned them, to really get this done, it will be a process,” he said, adding it is “not just going to be that you turn in your petition and they do it.”

Banik said there are good reasons for people in the villages to want a skate park. Safety can be an issue. An Elburn girl died in 2013 after colliding with a car while inline skating. A few months after that incident, another Elburn girl was hurt while skateboarding.

“It’s safer for the kids and safer for the town,” Banik said. “It’s better than sitting inside and playing video games. They have very good ideas, it’s just a matter of getting all of the details.”

The previous effort had a Facebook page, titled "Elburn Public Skatepark Movement."

Gutierrez, an eighth-grader at Harter, said he and his friends are aware there have been other attempts at a skatepark. He said the teens lately have been skating in the parking lot behind the American Legion in downtown Elburn. He and his friends said they have been other places in town, mostly parking lots, but “a lot of the people, they would get mad.”

Ideally, he said, they would like a skate park in the area of the park that sits near the Town and Country Public Library. Banik said it would be good for the kids to have their own area. He said when he was younger, he would look for places to skate and he knows that can be dangerous.

“The businesses and adults realize that, and they don’t want them to be there,” Banik said. “But where else are they going to go?”

Know more

To contribute to the teens' effort to bring a skate park to the Kaneland area, visit www.gofundme.com/elburnil.