skate park

Richard Umlauf is taking up the cause of getting a new skateboard park built in Batavia.

Until a few years ago, there was one behind Falleti Ice Arena off of Evans, but the location meant it got little use and it became a magnet for low-level drug use, according to police.

Umlauf is aware of those issues so he connected with Tony Hawk Foundation, which provides grants, in conjunction with the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation, to help build community skate parks.

Last Saturday, Umlauf organized the first meeting for skatepark supporters Trevor Staples, who is with the Tony Hawk Foundation, flew in from Michigan to attend the meeting and explain how the grant program works.

It will be up to a group of committed skateboard park supporters to raise as much as $250,000 for a skate park. The foundations will match up to $250,000, making a $500,000 park possible. 

The organizers will also need to secure the support of the city as well as space for the park from the city, perhaps in an existing city park.

To you, it probably just looks like a picture of a vacant lot with a piles of snow at the far end, but to Joseph Barclay Jr. it is -- or was -- a skate park.

Barclay asked on Facebook if The Batavian would look into why the city's skate park off Evans Street, behind the Falleti Ice Arena, disappeared.

Today, City Manager Jason Molino said the skate park had become a problem and it's future is uncertain.

"The park keeps getting vandalized and we were just putting good money after bad," Molino said.

In the fall, when city workers went to remove a couple of damaged ramps, they found drug paraphernalia and hypodermic instruments inside the equipment.

At that point, officials decided to remove the skate park all together. Molino said the city will decide what to do with it in the spring.

Barclay thinks he and his skating friends need a place to roll.

"I know all the BMXers, skateboarders and rollerbladers plan on using the streets again if the park isn't returned to us," Barclay said. "We should have a place where we can do our sports where we won't be in danger. Instead they take it away from us. It makes us use the streets again putting people and kids in danger of getting hit by cars."

Molino said he's aware there are a few users of the park, but Chief of Police Shawn Heubusch is concerned about the location on Evans, Molino said. Tucked behind the ice arena, it's not easily visible to people, which perhaps gives some visitors to the park the idea that it's a good place for illegal activity.

Vandalism in all of the city parks has become an increasing problem, Molino said. Water fountains, bathroom fixtures, tennis courts and nets, ball fields and basketball hoops have been regularly targeted by vandals, Molino said.

"It's a constant problem that we're trying to deal with in our parks," Molino said.

I went to the courthouse this afternoon to cover a case that, as it turned out, wasn't called, but I did spot this giant snow mountain behind the skate park. You really need to stand next to it to appreciate it, but here's a photo anyway.

There is still a flood watch in place for Genesee County, but eyeballing the Tonawanda Creek this afternoon, it didn't look too bad. Of course, if this pile melts off all at once ...