NEVIS — About 20 people packed into the tiny Nevis City Council chambers Monday, Feb. 9, as they waited for a decision on whether a crowd-funded skate park will receive the city’s blessing to proceed.
The Council took a unanimous vote in January to rescind its support going forward pending several caveats, such as financing information.
At its meeting on Monday, the council did not take action but plans to host future meetings on next steps.
Nevis Mayor Sue Gray went over a timeline of the city's involvement in the skate park proposal, which is so far in its early fundraising stages.
“We have continued to request the information, but we hadn't heard anything for a year," Gray said. “So that is where the city has to stop.”
A handful of community members spoke to the Council, urging them to consider continuing support of the Wild Tiger Skate Park.
“This process is a long process, and we knew that. I was on the committee, and I'm still on the committee, but that process stalled out, to answer your question, because of funding," said Nevis Fire Chief Brent Nicholson.
“We know that things like this aren't going to happen in one or two years. ... I don't know that it makes sense for the city to just pull out support when there could be other grant opportunities that might be coming down the pike in a year or two.”
Nearly five years ago, Liam Gustafson, then 11, first wrote to the Nevis City Council about his hope to see a skate park built in his town. For years, the Council supported the idea but maintained they would not be able to contribute any public funds. His mother, Heidi Gustafson, reiterated a timeline of her own about the communication breakdown.
“All other cities where skate parks have been built not only had minors on these committees, but youth were encouraged to participate," Gustafson said Monday. "Yet here in Nevis, Liam was told to stay away from his own project.”
The Nevis City Council is expected to discuss the project again in March, but Gustafson said she isn’t optimistic about the Wild Tiger Skate Park being built in there.
“They just don’t understand the process at all: even though I’ve explained it over and over, and I have sent them all the things,” she said. “Even if they don’t believe me, a quick Google search would just solidify everything I’ve said.”
During its Jan. 12 meeting, the Nevis Council raised concerns about the whereabouts of the funds raised and if they would be returned if the project couldn’t proceed.
“They've procured over $30,000 so far, for over a year, two years, something that obviously is not going to move forward," said Blair Reuther, a Nevis City Council member, on Jan. 12.
“But we did put our name on it, and so when they're given the trust and say, ‘Hey, Nevis Council approved it,’ and it's sort of like it reflects on our city.”
After the Feb. 9 meeting, Mayor Gray said she was hopeful the communication could be improved between the Council and the Gustafsons.
“We do have to have answers to some of our questions because of our constituents,” she said. “I wish them the best and hope that they’ll continue to get in touch with us.”
The over $30,000 raised for Wild Tiger Skate Park is in a dedicated bank account and the project has also received about $30,000 in pledges, but the Gustafsons are still far away from their goal to raise nearly $1 million. The $1 million goal is pending possible state funding assistance, but if those grants don’t become available again, the Gustafsons believe they can make a park happen with $200,000.
Gustafson, during a Jan. 30 interview at her home, shared her frustrations with how the process has gone so far.
“We'd love to still stay local because we still want it to be a park where kids could have a park to go to, where they didn't have to drive an hour to Bemidji,” she said.
There is a steel frame skate park structure nearby in Park Rapids, but Liam — who prefers doing tricks with a scooter — said much of the time, those types of structures are not ideal.
“It has to be sunny and dry, because if it's misty, you just slide and then you're dead,” he said, using morbid exaggerations to express wipe outs. “If it's cold, they are slippery, and then you're dead as well. So, unless it's hot and sunny, you're dead.”
A success story in Bemidji
The Bemidji Skate Park is one of the earliest public concrete bowl structures in the state. Nate Dorr, who was instrumental in pushing this project to the finish line, has also been in talks with the Gustafsons about Liam’s dream.
Dorr and his team began fundraising for Bemidji’s skate park in 2008 during the Great Recession and he recapped the journey in a Friday interview: from proposing it to the Parks Commission, all the way through to the concrete pours in the redeveloped Bemidji City Park.
“For us, it was really important to have the youth involved,” he said. “They had a student representative on the [Bemidji City] Council at the time, and that advised them a little bit of what the kids are into.”
Dorr, 49, still skateboards at the park he helped build. Fundraising efforts included $150,000 in city funds generated from a parks-focused half-cent sales tax, a grant from the George W. Neilson Foundation and even a celebrity shout out on the website formerly known as Twitter by skateboarding legend Tony Hawk.
Dorr said that skateboarding is a sport that has a low cost to entry, and it continues to adapt over the decades.
"Trends are changing, too. People still like street skating and bowl skating, but now the new thing is a pump track — it looks like a paved ribbon with little humps and features and banked corners,” he said.
Gustafson said she will continue to work on this project, wherever it ends up.
“We're just going to keep trying,” she said. “Trying to find a new location and see what else we can find to keep this alive.”
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