By CHARLOTTE PERKINS
Journal Lifestyle Editor
If you live in Perry and you’re thinking about buying your kid a skateboard, think again.
The simple truth, which has become a major frustration for young skateboarders, is that beyond the home driveway there’s nowhere to ride those skateboards.
And that does seem to be the final answer, unless someone opens a privately owned skateboarding site.
Parents and young skateboarders have recently appealed to city officials to establish some area where skateboarding can be allowed, but they are basically getting nowhere.
The latest step, following an appeal by Stan Plested, father of two young skateboarders, was for the Pubic Safety Oversight Committee to inquire about the possibility of setting aside a skateboarding area at one of the city’s parks.
That idea went down in flames on April 26 when the Parks and Recreation Commission sent a memo to City Manager Lee Gilmour saying they had agreed unanimously that “the liability to the city outweighed any benefits of allowing skateboarders use of city parks.”
The discussion continued at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting when a number of teenaged skateboarders showed up, along with their parents, to plead for a place to be set aside for their sport.
The young people got a sympathetic response and compliments for good manners at the meeting, but nobody budged an inch on the issue of providing city space, the supervision it would require for enforcement of legally required safety gear, such as helmets and knee and elbow pads, or the liability the city would face in case of a serious injury. Public Safety Director George Potter told the city council that while police were generally only responding to skateboarding on the sidewalks when there were complaints, “There have been lots of complaints about damage to property.”
As for skateboarding on city streets, he said, “That’s absolutely out.”
Skateboards are generally warned the first time, he said. Following that, they would be taken home by police.
Potter said that he didn’t want to give the young people a hard time, but that there were many complaints about skateboards and it was the police department’s job to enforce the law.
He noted that the Houston County School Board had written a letter to complain that skateboarders were damaging the memorial bricks in front of the main street board office, and that numerous complaints had come from downtown Perry merchants, where lights and benches were damaged. He also noted that parking lots used by the skateboarders were often private property and off limits for that reason.
A major issue throughout the discussion was legal liability in case a skateboarder is injured on city property.
Parents pointed out that other cities, mostly larger ones, had skateboarding parks.
Councilman Riley Hunt asked one courteous teenager, “Do you wear arm pads?”
“No, Sir.”
“Do you wear knee pads?”
“No, Sir.”
“Do you wear a helmet?”
“No, Sir.”
Gilmour said that while some parents said they would sign waivers and not hold the city liable in case of injury, he did not think that the parent of a young person with who was disabled or became a paraplegic, would honor such a waiver.
Parents pointed out that other cities, mostly larger ones, had skateboarding parks.
Councilman Joe Kusar suggested that Perry, as a smaller city than most of those mentioned by the parents, could not afford to provide the supervision and enforcement required for a skateboarding area in a city park, and suggested that the parents form a club, or use their own property.
“Then you can deal with the liabilities,” he said.
Mayor Jim Worrall, at the close of the discussion, offered to make contact with a man who had proposed the idea of a privately-run skateboarding area several years ago. Worrall said Wednesday that he had asked City Manager Gilmour to write to the Georgia Attorney General to ask for a ‘black and white” written opinion on the issue of whether waivers would nor would not protect the city from lawsuits.
Worrall noted that he has tried to work with the parents and that the questions have come up before. He said that he had been in touch earlier with a businessman interested in developing a recreational center in the Highway 96 area that would provide space for skateboarding, and would look into this again.
