Skate parks good thing, officials say

They may be prone to litter and occasional graffiti, but Salt Lake County's skate parks are a good thing, according to police and parks officials.

Sandy city briefly closed its skate park in June after the mayor received complaints about some of the skate park's users and after witnessing for himself underage smoking by park users and a near altercation in the parking lot. The city reopened the park a few days later but only after supervision was increased.

"I think what we had was a small group of eight to 12 older teens that are just bullies," said Nancy Shay, director of the city's parks and recreation department.

Shay said there haven't been problems since the park reopened and that the disobedient kids did not represent the majority who go to the park to skate and bike.

"Everything seems to be going just extremely well."

Sgt. Rod Lowry of the Taylorsville Police Department said police get few calls to the park located on Redwood Road near 4700 South.

"It's not a hot spot," he said.

Lowry said skaters, bikers and in-line skaters can gather at one centralized location, cutting back the numbers of those who would search for areas to practice.

"It keeps them out of the store parking lots and sidewalks, so people don't complain about that," Lowry said.

Frank Smedley takes his 11-year-old grandson visiting from Phoenix to the skate park in Salt Lake City's Jordan Park nearly every day. He said the kids at the park are generally polite and respect each other.

"They tend to police themselves," he said.

Smedley and his grandson, Floyd, said kids will band together and tell someone causing trouble to leave.

Mike Peterson, director of the Cottonwood Heights Recreation Center, which operates the Richard L. Guthrie Skate Park, has been in the parks and recreation business for decades and has seen the rise of skateboarding.

At first, Peterson thought the sport would pass as a fad. But permanent skate parks started becoming more common.

He said building a fence around the city's skate park has allowed operators to enforce rules and limit park users to hours the center sets.

Rules for the park state up front that the park will be closed if graffiti is found, and Peterson said park users know it. That knowledge deters park users from vandalizing the place, and now kids will call in if they see something like that happening.

Peterson said that while the skate park's users can be a "tough crowd" he has experienced few problems. He also said the park has surprisingly fewer injuries than first expected.

Lt. Robby Russo, chief of the police services for Cottonwood Heights, echoed Peterson.

"I gotta tell you, this group doesn't seem to be a problem," he said in an interview earlier this month. "We do not get calls there. Very rarely do we have any problems there."

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