Palouse skate park effort marks progress

Garth Meyer, Gazette Reporter | Jan 23, 20130

With an update to the city council, location scouting and more fundraising, the effort to build a Palouse skate park is moving ahead.

“We’re still plugging away,” said organizer Aaron Flansburg, who attended the Palouse City Council meeting Jan. 8 to inform council members of the latest developments.

Flansburg reported on the group’s wood-fired pizza fundraisers, his research into construction options and costs and asked the council to consider a location near the sewer plant.

“I don’t think there’s anything insurmountable,” said Palouse Mayor Michael Echanove, who has spoken in support of the project in the past.

Flansburg said the effort has raised $2,600 in the last year, from three pizza nights, a drawing, a quilt and individual donations.

The pizza nights involved volunteers assembling and making pizzas in Flansburg’s backyard wood-fired oven and delivering them around town. At the most recent event, on the first Sunday in January, the group sold 38 pizzas to bring in $515. Another $100 was donated the next day.

“It’s been a success for us so far,” said Flansburg. One of the volunteers is Gar-Pal senior Josh Miller, who is working on the skate park effort for his senior project.

Aside from fundraising, Flansburg has been researching skate park construction from around the world.

“There’s an awful lot that can be done by people locally, including myself, if we can figure out the legal way to go about it,” said Flansburg.

He said that, from what he has learned, a park could be built in stages, beginning with the first stage in Palouse fairly soon.

“If we can get cement for $100 a yard, then we could do about 81 square feet at four inches thick,” he said, noting that the labor could come from volunteers.

The skate park group’s total funds are $4,200, including $1,600 raised for an initial effort by Flansburg to build a park 10 years ago when he was in college.

“You can build a park that’s fun to skate for a small price,” he said.

Flansburg’s research turned up an incident of 8-year-old kids in Chile building a makeshift skate park in a drainage ditch.

“That was kind of inspirational,” he said.

The next step, Flansburg said, is to schedule a meeting with Palouse City Attorney Stephen Bishop.

What Flansburg has in mind is a spot across from Hayton Greene Park, to the west of the R.V. Park, and west and south of the sewer plant, next to the compost facility.

“There has to be some discussion, as far as the location goes,” said Flansburg.

“There could be reasons the (suggested spot) is good, there could be reasons it’s bad,” said Echanove. “I have no thought on that yet. I just don’t know.”

Flansburg said that he doesn’t have any other viable ideas for where to put it at this point.

If a location is secured and approved, Flansburg said that phase one could be constructed for less than $10,000.

The key would be volunteer labor, he said.

“The kids would take more pride in it as would the community if they are part of the construction; if we’ve done everything ourselves. I’m not afraid of taking on design projects,” Flansburg said, who helped build that wood-fired pizza oven in his backyard. “There are people within the support community who are talented.”

He indicated that he doesn’t want the park to be another burden on the city. He thinks those who use the park could take care of emptying garbage and more.

The next steps are to continue fundraising, meet with Bishop and determine a viable location, Flansburg said.

“We’d like to try to wrap up some of these preliminary steps so we can move on to the design and construction phase,” he said.

“I’m 100 percent in support of the skate park project,” said city Councilwoman Connie Newman. “And if its feasible to collaborate with the city on it then I am in support of that as well.”

Fundraisers to come include another Sunday pizza night and a concert event at the Palouse Grange Hall in March.

Flansburg’s band, Random Noise, will release its third album at that time.