Bar Harbor police Officer Soren Sundberg often deals with skateboarding teenagers on the town’s village green. Skateboarding isn’t legal there and it can be especially hazardous during tourist season.
“There isn’t space for all the foot traffic and the skateboarders,” Sundberg said.
But he said he never has a good answer when skaters ask where they can go instead. There isn’t a skate park on Mount Desert Island and the nearest one is in Ellsworth.
“The dilemma we have is we have nowhere really to send them to,” Sundberg said.
Soon, Sundberg may have a better answer. Last month, the Bar Harbor Town Council unanimously approved preliminary plans for a future outdoor skate park on part of the town’s athletic fields. The skate park will have numerous ramps and uneven surfaces for skateboarders to ride and leap.
While the town agreed to provide the land, the grassroots organization Skate.mdi! will be responsible for raising more than $250,000 to make the park a reality. Organizer Deborah Page said she hopes to find a nonprofit fiscal sponsor to collect tax-free donations for Skate.mdi! and corporate sponsorship to contribute to the park’s construction.
“Or we might be doing a lot of car washes,” she laughed.
This isn’t the first skate park to be proposed on MDI. Southwest Harbor officials rejected a skate park recently and a previous Bar Harbor town council tabled a vote on an earlier proposal.
Earlier grassroots attempts to organize for a skate park always lost momentum, said John Ho, a 38-year old Southwest Harbor skater, because of turnover within the movement.
“Kids get interested and kids go away to college,” Ho said.
But Skate.mdi! turned out to be different than previous groups because it was driven by Page and other longstanding adult community members. Page, a self-described perpetual community organizer, said she took up the skate park cause because of her young friend Abby Kestner’s love for skateboarding.
“Abby was my inspiration,” Page said.
Page noticed that Kestner had few opportunities to skate, except for when she could find a ride to the skate park in Ellsworth.
“At 14, she always needs somebody to drive her,” Page said.
Kestner, who comes from a family of skateboarders, said she was impressed with how safe and welcoming the Ellsworth skate park was.
“Everybody was really nice,” she said. “[And] there was always an adult watching out.”
Skateboarding has grown in popularity in the last 15 years, gaining mainstream exposure through the ESPN X Games. Skate parks have popped up at Camden, Bath and Bangor, and a park is being built on Vinalhaven.
Page said skate parks are necessary because the majority of skateboarding accidents take place on city streets and sidewalks not equipped to handle skateboarders, cars and pedestrians at the same time.
“If you don’t have a skate park, the town’s the skate park,” Page said.
Town Councilor Ruth Eveland said this skate park proposal was easier than the previous one to approve because Skate.mdi! demonstrated a better groundswell of support and provided a more-pleasing design.
“They had a much better plan,” Eveland said.
But not everyone is happy with the town council’s decision, including some business owners and homeowners near the athletic field.
Joe Cough, co-owner of Cadillac Motor Inn, was dismayed the skate park didn’t have to be approved by the planning board. Since the park will be part of the Parks and Recreation department and is on department land, it doesn’t go through the same planning process as other building projects.
“The town doesn’t view this as a structure,” Cough said. “This just bypasses all the regulations everyone else has to go through.”
Eveland said the final skate park plan will go through an extensive vetting process before being approved by the council.
Jan Hanscom is co-owner of the Cromwell Harbor Motel and lives near the park. She said she and neighbors are being asked to bear too much noise and disturbance so teenagers can skate. She felt there already was too much unchecked illegal activity going on at the park. While she’s sympathetic to the skateboarders’ cause, she just wishes the skate park could be placed at a centralized location on the island like the Mount Desert Island High School.
“Skateboards are very noisy,” she said. “We have enough to put up with.”
But Page said while the park is designed for all island skaters, the high school is too remote a location for it. In-town parks stand a much better chance of succeeding than rural ones, she said, because skateboarders often don’t drive and in-town parks are closer to amenities.
“Skateboarding is a very intensive sport,” Page said. “Kids need to refuel.”
Skate parks often meet with initial skepticism. Amos Wright, director of the Bath Skate Park, said his facility was no exception. Part of the problem, he said, is the rebellious appearance and attitude of some skateboarders.
“They don’t present themselves as ingratiating to the community,” Amos said.
But he said his park has won over some critics in part because he and his employees try to be responsive to neighbors’ concerns.
There most likely will be plenty of time to debate the final look and regulations of the new skate park as Skate.mdi! begins its fundraising drive, perhaps too much time for some skateboarders. Fourteen-year old Kestner hoped she’d be able to use the park before going to college.