Officials discuss skate park

Mayor anticipates fall start for construction project

Eastlake officials are thinking positive in terms of a new skate park in the city.

Mayor Dennis Morley, and council members John Meyers and Dave Spotton along with Deanna Elsing, the administrator of the Northern Career Institute of Willoughby-Eastlake Schools attended the CDBG-Home Federal Grants Program public hearing held by the Lake County Commissioners, July 19. The meeting

was to hear discussions on the proposed projects to be funded by grants during fiscal year 2018.

After the public hearing — which included a proposed $32,000 grant for the new Eastlake skate park — Morley felt confident in saying that the city anticipates construction of the park to begin this fall.

According to the mayor, the commissioners will meet again in the fall and award the money. Once the money has been awarded, the city will have a year to complete the park.

Students from NCI’s welding program will be working throughout the school year constructing the ramps and equipment that was designed by the students in the ExcelTECC Consortium working with affiliates in Mayfield Schools’ Computer Aided Design and Drafting program.

“When school starts back we are going to meet with them (students/instructors) and try to get a timeline on how they want to do this,” Morley said “Again, we look forward to working with the schools.

Spotton, who has worked along with Meyers and Morley to come up with a plan to build

the new park, feels that it’s and outstanding project and a great use of resources by involving the schools.

“The kids designed it and the kids are going to build it in the shop just like they are doing a job,” Spotton said. “The students did all the research and designed as teenagers what (teenagers) want and they did it with very little input from the adults.”

Eastlake residents along with residents from neighboring communities were shocked and outraged when the old skate park was demolished in October due to safety concerns and vandalism issues. The ramps there were made of

wood and not meant to be used for bikes.

The new skate park will be constructed from steel so it will be able to accommodate bikes along with skates.

“I took a lot of grief when I shut down the skate park, but — working with Spotton, Meyers and the schools — we continued to look for an avenue to keep a skate park opened,” Morley said. “It was a hard decision to close it but I knew in the end that we would find a way to get something built and this skate park will be a lot nicer than the one we had.”

The city is anticipating the new skate park to open in the spring.