Struthers residents spell out frustrations with skatepark

By Jeanne Starmack

starmack@vindy.com

STRUTHERS

The city’s skate-park is open for the summer, and once again, neighbors across the street are complaining about the kids who use it.

Signs, bigger and more emphatic than ones that sprang up last year, are back on two houses across from the skatepark, which is on Stewart Street next to the city’s garage and municipal building.

"Sick of it! Thirty years of taxes paid for this?” reads one sign.

“Our property value is now zero. We did not ask for a skate park,” proclaims another.

It’s an ongoing battle, neighbors say — with city leaders not doing enough about noise, loud profanity and litter that comes with the park. It shouldn’t be across from residences, they say.

“We’ve been living here with the noise, foul language — it’s ridiculous,” said Steve Morgan as he stood on his porch Wednesday afternoon and eyed the park, a collection of ramps on a concrete pad surrounded by a chain-link fence. There was no one there at the time, but, Morgan said, there were older kids in it causing a disturbance Tuesday, the day it opened.

“‘F’ this, ‘F’ that, bang, boom, crash. Constant racket,” he said.

“It’s the same thing every year,” he said.

City leaders say they inherited the park from the previous administration, and they are working to find a new location for it.

The city has worked to police the park too, with posted rules and hours set from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., safety service director Ed Wildes said Wednesday. The park is closed Sunday, he noted.

He said kids are being made to pick up their trash and watch their language.

“There may be an occasional slip of the tongue,” he said. “But we’ve cleaned that stuff up, and you can’t be there 24-7.”

The skatepark opened in 2006 with donated money from businesses to keep skaters and skateboarders out of parking lots and off sidewalks and streets, Mayor Terry Stocker explained Wednesday.

More than $70,000 was donated. The park was built on two lots near the municipal building and police station, he said, because city leaders thought it would be easier to manage it.

But neighbors weren’t favorably impressed by the park’s location, and they’re frustrated because the city hasn’t moved it.

“It’s one excuse after another,” Morgan said. “It’s all about local businessmen who want to keep these kids out of their parking lots.”

Stocker said he, Wildes and council members have met with Mill Creek MetroParks officials about moving the skatepark to Yellow Creek Park, which Mill Creek leases from the city.

There may be a suitable location near the Lowellville Road entrance, he said.

“But where are we going to get the money to pour concrete and move?” he asked. A new concrete pad will cost $10,000, he said.

Stocker said he understands it would be better if the skatepark weren’t near residences.

The city shut the park down several times last year after complaints from neighbors, and Morgan said it should be shut down again until it’s moved.

Wildes said the city gets “just as many complaints the other way” when the park isn’t open.