Palouse skate park organizers to consider two alternate sites

Proposed Palouse skate park organizers will hold a meeting Saturday at 3 p.m. to discuss two potential sites, neither of which is in Hayton Greene Park.

The meeting will be held in the main parking lot of the park. Information will be provided about the new sites, along with an invitation for feedback from the public.

Skate park effort leader Aaron Flansburg said that one of the new locations is across the street from Hayton Greene toward the sewer plant. The other is a city-owned vacant lot on West Whitman Street, roughly behind where the former Family Café building is.

“It’s an easily overlooked site,” Flansburg said.

After the city council initially approved a site in Hayton Greene Park over the summer, with contingencies, the idea of a skate park built in the riverside park drew gaining criticism. As a result, Flansburg has kept up the hunt for a site.

He indicated that he checked both potential new spots for utilities concerns.

“One came out fine and one came out about the way I expected, which wasn’t great,” he said.

He said the site near the sewer plant is criss-crossed by underground water and sewer lines.

“That area was laid out without the intent of having anything built over it,” he said.

Overall, he suggested that makes it a lesser candidate.

“I would say it leads me to look at the Whitman Street site more,” Flansburg said.

In addition to Saturday’s meeting, Flansburg and the skate park organizers are running the haunted firehouse for this year’s Haunted Palouse, which starts Friday. A total of 25 percent of the four-night event’s proceeds will go to the skate park effort.