About Me

Some people call me crazy. I'll take that -- I am crazy, but it's a kind of insanity that happens when you're blessed with the opportunity to see a side of life that you know most other people don't see, and you badly want them to. And I'm not knocking anyone who doesn't see it -- my now-grown son used to skate and had lots of friends who did, and yet there was so much I never knew, about the kind of people many skaters are, and what the fascination with skateboarding is all about.

Going to and from work back in the '80s I often used to see skaters around the Silver Spring Metro Station. Almost all of them were white, and they tended to be dirty, raggedy, and bloody. I thought it was stupid. I'd see them try to do tricks again and again, and I could't understand why they would risk bodily harm for that.

East of Maui, the interim skatepark that used to be on Ellsworth Drive

When my son was small we used to pass East of Maui Skatepark that used to be where the fountain is now, and I would pray that my son wouldn't ask me to go. He's a musician and I worried about his hands. And what the kids were doing in the skatepark looked so scary and dangerous to me.

The perceptions I had back then, of skateboarding being a really dangerous sport, were in some ways accurate but mostly not. Skateboarding is statistically safer than playing basketball. When I saw those kids with bloodied and skinned knees...in all likelihood they would not have been so bloody had they been skateboarding in a skatepark rather than at the Metro station. 50% of all skateboard-related trauma is caused by skating on irregular ground, such as broken concrete on sidewalks and stairs.

Why skating means so much to us

And I now understand fully the attraction of skateboarding, and the near-obsession with skating that most skaters seem to develop. Many skaters think of skating as a sport, a creative outlet, therapy, a connection to community, and most of all, a source of pure joy and happiness.

Teenage boys and no fights?

One of the first things I noticed about skaters that shocked and surprised me was how often I was around them and no one was fighting or even arguing. As I skated with local kids more, I kept waiting for it to happen -- just a subconscious expectation based on the fact that so many teenage boys were hanging out together, and it just seemed inevitable that sooner or later kids would fight. But I didn't see it -- ever. I do know of a couple of fights between skaters, but I've been around these kids a lot and I never saw one.

I don't know of any other sport that sees large groups of teenage boys regularly self-organize events and activities and no one fights. I hear about crazy arguments and fights at sports events such as local soccer games or football games, and I even hear about parents getting involved in fights.

What I have seen is not a group of angels, but a group of kids who just want to skate. And if they're skating, they're happy, and they're not fighting. We've visited skateparks and skate spots and kids would just skate for hours and hours, and just be happy.

Kids who don't have much to be happy about

And many are kids who don't necessarily have a lot to be happy about in their lives. We haven't lost any skaters to suicide, but in the past year alone, there have been several suicides among kids who were part of our skater community -- they were friends with a lot of skaters and they often hung out with skaters. There are skaters who've gone through foreclosures and evictions. Quite a few skaters live with grandparents or other guardians, and many have lost relatives or friends to suicide and/or violence.

Few camps and after-school activites

Many of our kids have few other activities available to them, like summer camps or after-school activities. But unlike those kids in our community who lost their way and got caught up with gangs and crime, these kids have identified something that makes their lives make sense. Something that gives them a little bit of happiness to carry them through the challenges they face in their lives.

Amazing diversity of Silver Spring skaters

There's such diversity among skaters, in terms of race and class. There are skaters who come from families with stables homes and finances, and those who do not, and in this community I've seen the most real diversity I've ever seen in Silver Spring -- not just people of different races living near each other or going to school together...but actually building real relationships across races.

Skaters aren't perfect, and neither are you

I don't see these kids as perfect by any means. But, there are other kids in our community who are sometimes seen as the 'perfect' kids, and I don't share that view. I think all human beings are flawed, and I don't differentiate the value of human lives based on what group someone is in, or the value of what one group in a community wants over what others want.

We need to listen to our kids

We're supposed to be able to listen to each other, and talk to each other, and if there's a large group of people in a community, regardless of their age, who want to do an activity that's completely legal, that helps them stay on the straight and narrow, and that will keep them from developing childhood obesity, then I think they deserve to be heard rather than being ridiculed.

Sector Plan for the CBD

I know my recent blog posts were mean. But when you get to know a group of kids like this, and get to know their challenges and issues, and you see them working so hard towards something, and so badly wanting something as simple as a place to skate...the only way to react to some of the crazy excuses against it is to make fun of them, particularly considering the fact that a skatepark in downtown has been in the recommendations of the Sector Plan for the CBD since February 2000.

That document, the notes from a Planning Board meeting in '05, explain why Park & Planning made the recommendation to build a 14,000 square foot skatepark in 2007, in Fenton Gateway Park:

Recommendation

The Community-Based Planning Division recommends that the existing 0.286 acre Fenton Street Urban Park be expanded to 1.3 acres in order to achieve the recommendations in the February 2000 Silver Spring Central Business District (CBD) Sector Plan, including the recommendation that a site be identified within the CBD for a replacement skateboard park.

Objectives

1. Address the demand for a skateboard facility in Silver Spring as demonstrated by the popularity of the interim facility. [Blogger's note: the interim facility was East of Maui, that closed in 1998.]

2. Provide recreational opportunities for people in different age groups with varying interests (i.e., augment the facilities at Jesup Blair Park and the planned ice rink at Veterans Plaza.)

3. Provide an appropriate site for skateboarding in the downtown to discourage skateboarders from damaging public spaces in the new revitalization projects.

4. Create a facility that will be an asset to the CBD and draw people to the downtown.

5. Create an attractive gateway to the Silver Spring CBD.

So way back in 2000, planners saw the need for a downtown skatepark in order to protect property in the coming development (much of which is now here), and they saw the growing popularity of the sport, and that a skatepark would be an asset to downtown that would attract people.

With regard to a skateboard facility, the Sector Plan describes the growing demand for such a facility at length on pages 129-130 and recommends that a site be found for a facility to replace the temporary skatepark that was located in the Core; this recommendation is repeated on pages 134 and 148. The Sector Plan recommends "considering sites throughout the CBD for the relocated park, including under-used parking garages, the Ripley District, and South Silver Spring." (p. 129)

and also

On July 12, 2001 park planning staff presented the Roller Hockey, In-line Skating and Skateboarding Report at a public session of the Planning Board.

This report identified Damascus, Germantown, Olney and Silver Spring as "areas with highest unmet need for skateboard facilities in the County..." Of those areas, only Silver Spring continues to lack a skatepark (Woodside is a skate spot -- not a skatepark.)

So clearly Park and Planning did their research and saw the growing popularity of the sport, and planners recognized the benefit of having a downtown skatepark to discourage skating in inappropriate places.

And even back in '05, park and planning recognized that Woodside Urban Park was too small for a skatepark. Explaining why they made the recommendation to build a skatepark in Fenton Gateway Park, Park and Planning talks about other spaces they looked at but ruled out:

"Other sites considered for skateboard parks but deemed too small were Woodside Urban Park and Jesup Blair Local Park. The Jesup Blair Facility Plan approved by the Montgomery County Planning Board includes a small skateboard park; however, the available space is only 5,000 square feet, which is too small to accommodate this type of facility. Therefore, staff is no longer recommending construction." (pp. 26-27) The staff report also included a memorandum from Councilmember Silverman to the Planning Board encouraging the Planning Board to include a skatepark in the next CIP.

So even back in '05, when Silver Spring had far fewer skaters than it does now, Park and Planning saw Woodside Urban Park as being too small for a skatepark. And, even with 5,000 square feet of available space in Jesup Blair Park, that was still considered too small. What we have now, Woodside Skate Spot, is 2,000 square feet smaller than that.

The Silver Spring Urban District Advisory Board voted in favor of a skatepark in Fenton Gateway Park, and sent a letter to the Planning Board and noted that the proposed location for the facility was "very appropriate" and even requested it be done "on a priority schedule."

But, neighbors didn't want the skatepark, and the plans died.

Skating by Chick-fil-A

The consolation prize given to skaters, was weekend skating on lower Ellsworth Drive, between Chick-fil-A and what's now Veterans Plaza. The streets were blocked off on Fridays and Saturdays, and even though skateboarding is completely legal in all of Montgomery County, that little piece of Ellsworth Drive was the only place in Silver Spring where a group of kids could gather and skateboard, and know they wouldn't get kicked out.

Shortly after I started skating in January '09, after years of kids skating at that spot, downtown officials suddenly stopped blocking traffic to allow skateboarding, and stopped letting kids skate anywhere downtown.

String of broken promises

When this skate spot that was hugely important to many area kids was suddenly taken away, with no conversation and no explanation, Gary Stith (then head of the Regional Center) told me the reason we lost the space was because "businesses complained." He couldn't even tell me what they complained about. And he also told me he was trying to identify an alternate location for skaters, and he said he was likely to have one for us within 2 weeks. That was 2 years ago.

After Gary said that, Lillian Buie, a Peterson Companies employee, told me we could skate in the alley behind the DTSS security office. That was fine -- for 2 weeks, after which security suddenly started kicking us out. It wasn't ideal, and as Lillian told me, we'd have to dodge trucks making deliveries, but still it was something, and it was suddenly taken away. And again, no conversation, and no explanation.

Next was Jennifer Nettles, Manager of DTSS, who repeatedly told me she was trying to find us a space near Whole Foods. That space never materialized.

In all this time we have asked again and again for an alley, a closed off street, a parking lot -- any place where kids can skate and not get kicked out.

Woodside Skate Spot can accommodate 7 skaters. Any more than that and collisions start happening. When we had Ellsworth Drive to skate on 30 or more kids could skate with no problems.

Park and Planning's parking lot

In my mind, the space that makes the most sense for skaters to use is the parking lot behind 8787 Georgia Avenue, Park and Planning's headquarters. This is the organization that encourages county residents to walk, bike, and ride buses. And yet even though they're blocks from a major transit center, they have a huge parking lot where their employees park for free. So if their employees are all driving to work...how can they ask other county residents to use alternative transportation?

Meeting with Reemberto

At our last meeting with Reemberto in the Civic Building, he asked how many of us know how to build things to skate, and 20 of us raised our hands. DIY (Do It Yourself) is a huge part of skateboard culture and virtually all skaters have some experience building things like boxes and kickers. I've seen skaters build things out of what looked like a pile of trash. They're an extremely creative bunch, and they're willing to do it and they want to do it. They only need the space.

Homemade Skatepark

K-Town in Kensington is a homemade skatepark that's been around for years. At various points there have been issues with the community, particularly with skaters leaving building supplies around. But what I've been saying for a very long time, is that in Silver Spring we have a real community, and there's an adult (me) who knows virtually all of the skaters and who has relationships with these kids. All we ask is for the county to work with us, and we can work amongst ourselves to build and maintain whatever we need to.

Long Story Short

The Montgomery County Planning Board's Sector Plan for the Silver Spring Central Business District calls for a downtown skatepark. The Sector Plan, created in 2000, acknowledges the popularity of East of Maui, a former downtown skatepark that was built in the late 1990s and that used to sit where the Silver Plaza (the fountain, etc.) is now.

The Sector Plan also acknowledges the need for a downtown skatepark in order to reduce damage to redevelopment properties from skateboarders. It's in the county's economic interest to build a skatepark. Areas that have skateparks have much less damage to surrounding properties. We've seen this dynamic here in Silver Spring — when skaters had a legal place to skate, (and not even a skatepark but a half-block's worth of flat pavement to skate), no one skated Discovery and there was no damage to Discovery Plaza, or to it's marble ledge. Both were trashed after that skate spot was taken away. This was not done out of vengeance or a desire to destroy property. It happened because skaters had no place to go.

The East of Maui skatepark was interim from its start. It was intended as a temporary amenity to give kids downtown something to do before DTSS was fully developed. The reference in the 2008 Status Report, "replace interim skateboard facility", is specifically referring to replacing East of Maui.

Park & Planning came up with plans for a "skate spot" (too small to be called a skatepark) in Woodside Urban Park. At a November community meeting they told us that they asked a skatepark company for the smallest possible park they could build. Experts in this field say a skate spot this size can only support 20 skaters. The project has been delayed because Woodside Civic Association wants a lot of questions answered before they support it, but even if it actually does get built, The Woodside Skate Spot is also intended to be interim. So, they want to replace an interim park...with an interim park?

In 2005 parks had plans for a 14,000 square foot skatepark in Fenton Gateway Park. Our need for a real skatepark is much greater today than it was in 2005. So why are we moving backwards rather than forward? Where's the commitment to these kids — to keeping them out of trouble and helping them to engage in healthy activities?

The most important reason for building a downtown skatepark? Of the 42 US skateboarding-related fatalities in 2006 (that's about 1 per week), 40 happened outside of skateparks. Skateboarding is statistically safer than playing basketball, and the vast majority of these fatalities involved motor vehicles. And sadly, one of them happened right here in Silver Spring.

Skateboarding Timeline: How Silver Spring's Kids Were Let Down [UPDATED]

(Update appears at the end of this post — the last 2 items in the timeline.)

Teens have been speaking up very clearly, and for a very long time, about what they want and need. And yet, all they've gotten so far is broken promises.

In 2005 the county parks department had plans to build a 14,000 square foot skatepark in Fenton Gateway Park. While the 2000 Sector Plan for the Central Business District calls for downtown to have a skatepark, it seems the real impetus for this project came from Lisa Jaeggi and her now-famous No No Skateboarding, the short film shot by her father, Richard Jaeggi, protesting the prohibition of skateboarding by a private company (DTSS), on a public street (Ellsworth Drive.)

But there was no support for the skatepark in Fenton Gateway Park by the surrounding community, and plans were allowed to "quietly die." After that, the county did address the lack of a legal place to skateboard by giving skaters lower Ellsworth, blocking traffic and allowing skateboarding there on weekends.

One day in January 2009, skateboarders showed up at their beloved skate spot on Ellsworth, to find that it no longer existed. Without a word of warning to skaters, the one place in all of downtown where skaters could skate and not get kicked out, was suddenly gone. From then until now skaters in and around the the Central Business District, which is supposed to have a skatepark, have gotten nothing but promises for a new spot (all broken), and harassment from DTSS and various other security guards in the area.

In the 2000 Sector Plan for the CBD, the call for a skatepark acknowledged the popularity of East of Maui, the "interim" skatepark that was once downtown, and also addressed the importance of providing a legitimate skating facility in order to protect the redevelopment areas from being damaged by skaters.

Since 2000, the entire country has seen an explosion of growth in extreme sports, most of all skateboarding, while the numbers for all team sports are down. Skaters for Public Skateparks says the national average of youth that skate is 16%, and of those, 33% are daily skaters. In a ten year study the National Association of Sporting Goods Manufacturers said that among sports that grew by at least 15%, skateboarding beat them all — growing more than 74%.

Today, skateboarding is a multi-billion dollar industry.

If we were to reprise Lisa Jaeggi's film today, it would look quite a bit different from No No Skateboarding — the skaters in her video appear to be almost all white, while the vast majority of Silver Spring skaters today are minorities — many of them with limited options for recreation.

Here's a quick timeline of skateboarding-related events in Silver Spring.

• East of Maui closed — The East of Maui Skatepark closed to make way for the downtown redevelopment. It's owner Dave Loop told me it was always meant to be "interim" but that he was able to keep it open longer than expected. (Sadly, all of the ramps and equipment were destroyed when the skatepark closed.)

• 2003 Tony Hawk in Silver Spring — Discovery Corporation hosted the largest and most successful event in the history of downtown Silver Spring, featuring skateboarder Tony Hawk.

• 2005 Lisa Jaeggi's No No Skateboarding — Lisa Jaeggi stages and films a skate-protest on Ellsworth Drive in Downtown Silver Spring, to protest the prohibition of skateboarding by a private company on a public street. Along with his daughter, Richard Jaeggi, who shot the film, promotes it at various events and community meetings, using it to convince community leaders of the need for a downtown skatepark.

• March 2005 Youth not discussed — In a Citizens Advisory Board meeting, Impact Silver Spring's leader Frankie Blackburn said "I was on the Redevelopment Committee and we never once discussed incorporating youth in downtown."

• 2005 Skatepark plans for Fenton Gateway Park — Park & Planning drew up plans for a downtown skatepark, a 14,000 square foot facility to be built in Fenton Gateway Park. The community fought it and the plans died.

• 2005 Park & Planning say Woodside too small — Park & Planning explain why they focused on Fenton over other properties, i.e., Woodside was considered too small for a skatepark.

• 2006 Silver Spring skateboarder killed — 44 year old Bob Wooldrige was hit by a car and killed while skateboarding on a Silver Spring neighborhood street.

• 2006 Lower Ellsworth opens to skaters — The county started blocking traffic for skateboarders on the lower portion of Ellsworth Drive on weekends — apparently to give skaters something after plans for the skatepark in Fenton Gateway Park died.

• 2007 Lisa Jaeggi's new film — Lisa Jaeggi's 2005 skate-protest was included in a new film, Silver Spring Town and included in Gandhi Brigade's What's Your Story?, a collection of short films focused on giving youth a voice in the community. This series further highlighted the desire of local teens to have a community skatepark — as teens themselves speak out about their need.

• January 2009 Lower Ellsworth closed to skaters — The management of DTSS and the Silver Spring Regional Office stopped blocking traffic for skaters, closing lower Ellsworth as a skating spot — the only legal skateboarding spot in downtown Silver Spring. Gary Stith told me the reason for ending skateboarding on Ellsworth was because "businesses complained."

• January 2009 Promise of a new skate spot — Shortly after Ellsworth was closed to skateboarders — I was told by Gary Stith that he was trying to get us a new skate spot in an area behind Whole Foods, and that we were likely to have that within a couple of weeks. Never happened.

• January 2009 Seeking support from Richard Jaeggi — I called Richard Jaeggi asking for help to get skating back on Ellsworth, or an alternative location. Richard told me he was too busy planning the March 7th Mixed Unity concert, and that was all he could focus on. (He told me he had tried to bring skaters into Mixed Unity but failed, and asked me to bring them in. But I attended a few meetings and after the first, I told him I didn't think they'd be interested since all I saw was concert planning. The skaters just wanted a place to skate.)

• February 2009 DTSS gives us, then takes back skate spot — I was told by Lillian Buie, DTSS Guest Relations Director, that we could have the alley beside the DTSS security office. She took me to the alley to show me the area. We WERE allowed to skate there...for all of two weeks, before it was taken away and they started kicking us out.

• May 2009 Another supposed skate spot — We were told by Jennifer Nettles, Property Manager of DTSS, that she was working on getting us the pavement between Whole Foods and Hollywood Video. Never happened.

• May 2009 Skateboarding event that never happened — AFI asked DTSS to host a skateboarding event, to promote a skateboarding movie AFI planned to screen. Never happened. (After a 3-month fiasco of trying to help DTSS plan this thing, with the date being changed from June 21st, to July 21st, to August 21st, we were finally offered such a low-budget tired-sounding event that no one would have bothered to come.)

• July 2009 A supposed skatepark on library property — We were supposedly on track to get a skatepark in the space the library currently sits on, once that's torn down. Not gonna happen.

• July 2009 No response from Citizens Advisory Committee — Following DTSS Property Manager's request, Lillian Buie made an email introduction with me and a Citizens Advisory Board member, identifying me as someone who was very involved with local skaters and who knows a lot about their needs. I sent 3 long emails to that Advisory Board member — not one of them got a response.

• October 2009 Skaters find out about Woodside plans — Former Silver Spring skater Mike Fitzgerald, who came with me to the first meeting with DTSS on the planned skateboarding event, (and who now lives in West Virginia), informed me of the planned skate spot for Woodside Urban Park. I immediately set up a Facebook Group and started organizing skaters to support it.

• November 4th, 2009 Woodside Skate Spot meeting — We were supposedly going to have a tiny "skate spot" (3,000 square feet) in Woodside Park this January. We were asked to support it. We did support it, asking skaters to send supportive emails, and asking skaters to attend the meeting (30 did), and I even attended a 'pre-meeting' that I initiated on November 4th, the day of the community meeting. Construction on that skate spot has now been delayed, and I'm not convinced it's actually going to be built.

• November 24, 2009 A sensible solution — In the midst of all of these dropped balls and broken promises, blogger Dan Reed of Just Up The Pike, makes the first sensible, and logical recommendation to resolve these issues — give the skaters an entire floor of the Wayne Avenue garage. The skaters love this idea and the county needs to get behind it — for the health and wellbeing of our children, and to preserve property.

• November 25, 2009 SPS weighs in — In a comment posted to Dan's blog, Skaters for Public Skateparks Publishing Director Peter Whitley, thanks Dan for using the SPS data exactly as it was meant to be used, and points out that while "budget-minded bureaucrats" may see skate spots as "miniature skateparks", they are not, and are only meant to augment community skateparks and not to replace them.

Woodside Too Small for Downtown Skatepark (According to Park & Planning in 2005)

Based on the explosion of growth in extreme sports, we likely have hundreds more skateboarders in Silver Spring today than we did in 2005. And yet, in 2005, Park & Planning said that Woodside Urban Park was too small to accommodate a skatepark, and that even Jesup Blair Local Park, (where the available space was 5,000 square feet), was too small.

So why, at the end of 2009, when all available data suggests we have many more skateboarders than in 2005, would Park & Planning intentionally plan for the smallest skatepark possible in Woodside Urban Park?

"Other sites considered for skateboard parks but deemed too small were Woodside Urban Park and Jesup Blair Local Park. The Jesup Blair Facility Plan approved by the Montgomery County Planning Board includes a small skateboard park; however, the available space is only 5,000 square feet, which is too small to accommodate this type of facility. Therefore, staff is no longer recommending its construction." (pp. 26-27) The staff report also included a memorandum from Councilmember Silverman to the Planning Board encouraging the Planning Board to include a skate park in the next CIP.

And if Jesup Blair was deemed too small at 5,000 square feet, how on earth could a 3,000 square foot "skate spot" possibly meet the needs of local skaters?