Skate park sought for Highlands

It wasn't on the agenda for the Dec. 7 City Council meeting, but several Issaquah Highlands residents made sure city leaders heard about their desire for a city-run skate park. Led by local resident Robert Milligan, who also serves as president of the Issaquah Highlands Community Association (IHCA), the residents chose the Dec. 7 meeting to float their ideas as the council prepared to deliberate a final time over the 2010 City Budget. Milligan, organizing the advocacy independent of his position on the IHCA, said it was important to directly address the council as a demonstration of how important the park idea was too them. "Nothing will match your physical attendance, a show of skateboards or scooters, and your voice," he said. Emily Arteche, holding her safety-helmeted son Lucas in her arms, said the area had a great number of children and adolescents skating along the sidewalks and in residential streets. She said the creation of a pedestrianized, protected park would provide children a safer place to play. "It would be great to have a place where we could walk to in our neighborhood," she said. Issaquah currently maintains a small skate park at the Issaquah Community Center on Rainier Blvd. South. The street-style park area has a wide concrete channel that runs into a half bowl with a six-foot-radius and metal coping along the edges. But that's several miles from the hundreds of youth in the Highlands, while others complain the park is much too small. Chase Densky was one of two boys who spoke to the council advocating for a park that could compete with Sammamish's 16,000 square-foot skate park, "so we don't have to get our parents to drive us there." The Sammamish skate park, which opened in Dec. 2006, is located near City Hall and cost $300,000. The park is open to skateboarders, in-line skaters, and bicyclists.

Contact Issaquah Reporter Staff Kendall Watson at kwatson@issaquah-reporter.com or (425) 391-0363, ext. 5052.

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