Rotary Club grinds over skatepark

The Rotary Club Of Saipan already supports the best brand of youth basketball on island and now they are interested in taking their community related athletic activity to the next level by bringing a skatepark to Saipan.

In an email to the Saipan Tribune, the Rotary Club of Saipan conveyed its interest in holding a forum to exchange information and ideas surrounding the possibility of developing a skateboard park for Saipan’s skateboarding community.

There is still plenty of time to get your notes together and research facts before the forum as all students, parents, clergy; youth support groups and agencies as well as local business leaders, and law enforcement are invited to attend the meeting at the Garapan Central Park on Dec. 2 at 10am.

According to Laurie Peterka, Director of Club Services, the Rotary Club of Saipan constantly searches for different ways to assist the community with projects, ranging from fire victims assistance to the Parade of Books celebrating Literacy Month.

Peterka said that the idea of a skateboard park arose from a handful of Rotarians who asked their children for feedback about the Rotary Club’s intention to organize a youth project.

“We decided that facilitating a youth project, such as a skateboard park would provide another type of sport that kids would get involved with instead of, perhaps, less productive activities,” she said.

Preliminary research performed by the Rotary Club’s Skateboard Park Project Committee found that skateboard park projects are very popular in many U.S. communities, and the mission now is to find out whether Saipan’s community is willing to get behind and support a distinct group of youth for this kind of project.

“Therefore, we are interested in holding a preliminary meeting to get feedback, which we hope will spur a cooperation of effort between skaters and the local community,” said Peterka.

So far, the SPPC has cited the location and safety of the park as the primary concern and discussions with Parks Services at American Memorial Park, the CNMI Department of Parks and Recreation, and legislators have already taken place.

“At this point, RCS-SPPC has determined that, initially, the Garapan Central Park location, offered by the CNMI Department of Parks and Recreation, seems the most promising. RCS-SPPC is quite aware of the need to equally satisfy the skateboarders and the local community in choosing the most appropriate location. Any site chosen must serve both neighborhoods and skateboarders, be evenly distributed geographically, be environmentally sound and not displace existing activities, such as basketball or tennis courts,” said Peterka.

Rotarians have already conducted research and discussed the size and design of a skateboard park based upon existing parks and builders in Hawaii as well as a similar ongoing project in Guam, and one of the plans include seeking assistance from the Tony Hawke Foundation.

“The idea is to learn from the Hawke’s professional experience in building skateparks across the U.S. and to get expert input and guidance to insure the safest and most successful project for our community,” she said.

Peterka said that skateparks are being built all over the world at an “astonishing rate” in some very small towns, and that a web search easily reveals how the popular sport has become and the benefits communities reap from their projects.

In the 2001, Tony Gembeck of TranWorld Media found that there were roughly 16 million skateboarders in 2002—up from 11.5 million skateboarders in 2000, and an estimated 400 public skateparks in the United States alone.

That figure was compared to the 9 million Little League baseball players at that time and then highlighted that most cities with multiple baseball fields had yet to build skateparks.

“For example, the city of Oceanside, California has been carefully tracking the use of its modest 11,000-square-foot ramp park, and reports that 1,000 skaters per week have used the park in the past year. Oceanside is now planning to build three more neighborhood skateparks. Also, at a recent national convention of parks-and-recreation officials, the topic most were eager to discuss was skateparks and how to get one–quick.”

Anyone interested in discussing the establishment of a skateboard park in Saipan is welcome to attend the meeting and for more information, contact Dennis Yoshimoto by calling 287-1267 via email at RCS-SPPC@yahoogroups.com.