Supporters: A Skateboard Park 'Would Benefit Everything'

On July 15, 2008, former Dormont resident Mary Pitcher lost two of her four sons in a drowning incident at a reservoir in the Allegheny National Forest. The young men, Stephen Pitcher, 19, and Vincent Pitcher, 21, who grew up in Dormont, were avid skateboarders. As a memorial to the two lives lost, their mother, now a resident of Scott Township, approached Dormont Council about establishing a skateboard park and raising the money for its construction. Since then, the proposed facility has been fraught with controversy. This three-part series will look at existing skateboard facilities in other municipalities, as well as examine the views of those opposed to the creation of one in Dormont—and those who feel it would be an asset to the borough.

Dormont has its share of recreational activities—the pool, basketball courts for a pickup game, horseshoes for the older crowd, tennis courts, ballfields for organized sports, walking paths and playground facilities.

But, those activities don't necessarily appeal to everyone. According to some of Dormont's teenagers, unless they play an organized sport or it's hot outside, there's nothing for them to do. And trying to do something other than sitting at home playing video games gets them in trouble.

Skateboarding on streets or at a Port Authority stop or junction is illegal. Shopping centers, and the tennis courts at Dormont Park are all posted with "no skateboarding" signs—and some places include bicycles, too.

"Everywhere I go, I get kicked off," said Tyler Black, 13, of Dormont, who says he's even been told to get off the street with a skateboard in his hand as he's walked along Potomac Avenue. He has friends who have been issued citations with fines, which can be given for trespassing or disorderly conduct.

"We get tired of skating in the street and getting yelled at," said Nathan McCartney, 16. "It's hard to find places to skate around here. They think all skateboarders are all bad."

The teens say that they and their friends are often forced to wait until night falls, and then use parking lots at businesses or the senior high rise until they get kicked out.

And it's not just skateboarders. Ryan Dorsch, 12, who rides BMX bikes and rollerblades, said he's treated the same way.

Black, McCartney and Dorsch think there's a solution to the issue—and that solution is Pitcher Park Memorial Skatepark, which approved in April 2010. The park, within at the corner of Banksville Road and Dormont Avenue, would also accommodate bikers and rollerbladers and keep all three groups off the street.

"Enough is enough," McCartney said about the adult bickering that he feels has hampered the project. "We need and want Pitcher Park, and I don't understand why some people are so against it. It's not fair to us."

McCartney, who works at Kuhn's supermarket, said he and other skateboarders respect their parents, teachers and police; work hard in school; do their chores; and go to work.

"So, at the end of the day, with the little bit of free time we have, after doing everything that we are supposed to do, told to do and is expected of us, do we have to be told that what we want and love to do can't be done? All we want to do is skate and have a good time. We have a right to do what we love just as much as anyone else—and we also want to know that we have a clean and safe environment to do it in. Why do some people think that is so wrong?"

Although skateboarding has grown in popularity over the past few decades and many towns across the country have added skateboard parks to their recreational offerings, there are no facilities in Dormont or its bordering neighborhoods.

"There's nowhere for them to go," said Mandy Swartzwelder, a parent whose son is among those targeted by police. "This skatepark is going to be a great thing. It's a shame. All there is in Dormont is the wooden (playground) castle and that's for little kids."

Mary Pitcher said the idea for the skatepark was an effort by family and friends of her two late sons, Vincent and Stephen, who were avid skateboarders and BMX bikers, to create something positive for the community from a devastating tragedy.

"I have felt personally the discrimination that my own sons faced just trying to find a safe, appropriate place to ride their bikes or skateboards in this area," Pitcher said.

While some , there are other adults who support the effort by Pitcher to memorialize her two sons.

One of those adults is one-time Dormont resident Steve Aguzzi, associate pastor of . His church, which includes a number of members from Dormont, is considering starting a skateboard ministry as an outreach for teens.

"When you have a lot of kids who don't have much to do in the community, it makes for a very bad community," said Aguzzi, who was the church's former youth pastor. "I understand the argument on the other side of it. Sometimes a community is called to put their issues on the backburner for the sake of children. Sometimes you have to pull together for a greater calling. There are things greater than house values."

Aguzzi said a church leader he spoke with in California, where skateboard parks are in abundance, "couldn't believe that there's a dispute." He said a skatepark can be a community-building activity, a place for fundraisers, for mentorship and character building.

"The goal of our organization was to donate a skatepark. Period," Pitcher said.

But the nonprofit Pitcher Park Memorial Skatepark group found that wasn't so easy—and, in fact, council rejected the proposal once before Pitcher appealed to a new council, which voted in favor of the project.

The first plan was to place the skatepark at the site of the older tennis courts on Memorial Drive, but after resident objections, it was designed to be parallel to those courts but further away from homes. When that met with objection, Pitcher said borough officials chose the Banksville Road tennis courts as the best site with visibility and away from homes in an already-established recreation area.

Borough officials also asked the Pitcher Park group to refurbish or replace the existing basketball court along Banksville Road, and refurbish the tennis courts on Memorial Drive, with the help of Mt. Lebanon United Presbyterian Church, donations from Jim Jenkins Garden Shop and professional assistance from a tennis contractor.

Grindline Skateparks Inc. of Seattle, WA, has been hired to construct the 15,000-square-foot concrete facility. Grindline has designed and built more than 100 skateparks since 1990, according to its website.

"Their work is impressive," said Councilwoman Heather Schmidt, who voted in favor of the skatepark along with councilwomen Kim Lusardi, Laurie Malka and Joan Hodson. "It's beautiful."

The skatepark is to be built within a five-year timetable, Schmidt said. After council granted approval, a legal agreement between the borough and Pitcher Park was to be drawn up by the attorneys for both sides as a matter of administrative protocol.

Schmidt said council specified that no construction could proceed until all the money to fund the project was in place. As long as those terms are met, Schmidt said, the skatepark should become reality.

"I don't think a new council would be able to come in and say, 'No, you can't do it,'" she said, particularly since Pitcher Park has already spent money on the project.

Even without starting work on the skatepark itself, Pitcher's spent about $60,000. The park alone is estimated to cost between $500,000 to 600,000, which Pitcher hopes to achieve through grants, in-kind services, donations and through fundraisers, like the recent . One donation of services came today (Friday) from Keystone Consultants Inc. of Carnegie, which agreed to provide a required survey of the site at no cost to the Pitcher Park group.

The Pitcher Park group will also hold an escrow account to maintain the park for 20 years after it is built.

After the park was approved, dissenting borough officials sent letters to New Sun Rising, which provided the nonprofit umbrella status for Pitcher Park in the beginning. New Sun Rising dropped Pitcher's group, telling her they "couldn't handle the dynamics of Dormont," she said. Councilman John Maggio, who voted against the skatepark, said he sent one of the letters after "inappropriate postings, signs and pictures she was putting out, including one of me as the Burger King person," something Pitcher said she regrets doing.

Pitcher said she then had to pay out another $850 to file with the Internal Revenue Service so the group could get status as a 501(c)3 nonprofit and a 509(a) public charity.

"The fact that the controversy is still occuring is stemming from a small group of people in Dormont, even after their demands were met by moving the initial design three times, away from houses, not taking away green space, replacing a half basketball court with a collegiate-size court and refurbishing tennis courts—with all this being done and the skatepark being built with no taxpayer dollars," Pitcher said.

Hodson, who said she's in favor of any recreation in the borough, said a masterplan for Dormont Park done in the 1990s actually included a plan for a skatepark. Schmidt, a rollerblader and skateboarder herself, said she knows firsthand the need for a safe place to do it.

"If you didn't play an organized sport, you didn't have anything to do," said the Dormont born-and-raised Schmidt, adding that skateboarding tends to attract more "artsy" and creative types of kids who aren't into organized activities.

Opponents of the skatepark point out that it might attract people from other communities. Schmidt said that she investigated the Banksville tennis courts and found a lot of users were non-residents. The same is true for Dormont Pool, which sells non-resident season passes.

Pitcher said opponents try to label her as an outsider because she now lives in Scott Township, even though she raised her sons in Dormont, their father still lives in the borough and she owns an . She's been met with harassment, verbal attacks and has been made to jump through hoops as she has tried to donate the skatepark to the community.

The controversy has gone beyond the objecting to the park—to where Pitcher said people have attacked the character of all four of her sons, including the two who died, on Patch posts and verbally in the community. She said it even happened at public meetings, which is why she began to videotape all council sessions.

The Save Dormont Park group posted photos of McKinley Park's skateboard park to show graffiti as a potential issue. But former Dormont resident Andrew Fetzko, owner of the Head Board Shop, a skateboard shop on the South Side, said some of that graffiti was part of a contest at the Pittsburgh park sponsored by Hater Magnet, a hip-hop clothing company.

McKinley Park is in an urban area prone to issues such as graffiti—and he points out that graffiti occurs everywhere. Because paint ruins skating surfaces, it's not something done by skateboarders.

"To say this brings graffiti is absurd," Fetzko said. "It's a few absurd people putting forth this proposition that juvenile delinquent gangs will move in to Dormont. I just do not understand how a community that has so much like Dormont doesn't see the opportunity. It would benefit everything."

Hungry and thirsty skateboarders would patronize the shops in the adjacent shopping center, he said. So might their parents. And would sell more passes as more people gravitate to the skatepark.

In fact, not having a skatepark might actually lead to more problems. Without an outlet that teens enjoy, the community might well find them "over the hill smoking weed and drinking beer" out of boredom, Fetzko said.

"I understand some of these people want their private little park," Fetzko continued. "It's time that we wake up. To think that every kid in America today wants to play baseball, basketball or football is jejune. There has to be some type of facility that's safe for the other 80 to 90 percent who don't excel in or play organized sports."

To view Part I, click . To view Part II, click