OGDEN, Utah -- The Ogden skateboarding community is trying to put the wheels in motion when it comes to revitalizing the city's skate park.
Skateboarders say the park, located within Lorin Farr Park, is out of date and needs new infrastructure. They are in the process of gaining signatures for a petition that will be presented before city council, asking them to address these concerns.
"You know as well as I do what happens to concrete after 15 years, it starts aging and needs to be taken care of," said skateboarder Dustin Clark of Ogden.
Every direction he looks, Clark said, he sees a problem from large cracks, to deteriorating rails, to a poor drainage system.
Skateboarders say it's made riding dangerous and frustrating.
"It's sad to see that the city is just letting that rot away and neglect, the longer that sits and doesn't get taken care of it's just going to get worse and worse," said Clark referring to the "octagon" or "table top" that sits in the middle of the park.
The city acknowledged there are some issues, but they have 43 parks, and they don't have the resources to address every need.
"It's as functional today as the day it was put in, it still operates as a skate park," said Ogden Parks Manager Perry Hufftaker.
However skateboarders say functional isn't good enough. More and more of them are traveling to newer parks in cities like Layton and Provo.
"So they live here but they have to go 10, 20 miles away to actually have something decent that they can actually progress on, that’s the problem," said skateboarder Andre Nash.
Tony Poselli is passing out flyers, alerting the community about his petition to improve the park. He doesn't skateboard himself, but he is the founder of Ogden Reborn. Their mission is to bring people to the city.
"You hear these kids say, ‘I'm going off to Provo and skating, how great their park is, I like Ogden more than Provo,’ and I want to see them stay in their hometown and spend their money here and be proud of what we have here in Ogden," Poselli said.
So far they have received close to 2,000 signatures. They plan on presenting the petition before city council sometime in September.
"If they were to come forward to me and say, 'hey we got this, and we would like you to look at that,' we have no problem looking at their needs and trying to address them as best we can," Hufftaker said.
The community and city have worked together in the past when it comes to the best interests of the skate park. It was just a few years ago that the park was closed due to a number of troubling issues including graffiti, drug use, underage drinking and fighting. Then the community stepped up, and took it upon themselves to take back their park, eliminating most of those problems.
