Skateboarders showed off their best moves during an open house and tournament at the Ballard Commons on Saturday, June 24. Skateboarding advocates set up information booths and a chair made out of skateboards was raffled off. The event was sponsored by the Seattle Parks Department and the skateboarding community.

The Seattle Parks Department says there are thousands of skateboarders in Seattle - roughly 20,000 - with only two public skate parks. One is the Ballard Bowl and the other is the Seattle Skate Park at Seattle Center, which is scheduled to close after the property was sold to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

This February, the Seattle City Council appointed a Skate Park Advisory Task Force to come up with a plan for adding skating amenities around the city, and to bring that recommendation back to the council by early next year.

There are 11 members on the Task Force, representing various community and skating interests. A number of meetings have been held around the city to solicit ideas on skateparks. The goal of the public meetings are to develop criteria for skate parks, their features and suggestions on where to build them.

"It's a diligent process, we are asking for criteria," said Scott Shinn, one of the task force members who was at the open house. Shinn said the Task Force will come up with recommendations on size, range of types, and identify neighborhoods that lack the facilities. Potential sites will be named in a meeting to be held in September. A final list will be submitted for public review.

By December, a draft plan would be presented to the Board of Park Commissioners and in January, the list of sites will be sent to the City Council for final approval.

The Skate Park Advisory Task Force is looking at four levels of skate park, distinguished by size. Skatedots are the smallest areas, followed by skatespots, district skate parks and regional skate parks [see sidebar].

The focus of the Skate Park Advisory Task Force is primarily on Skatespot and district size skate parks said Shinn.

The Task Force has come up with a list of requirements for all skate parks, such as off-site impacts to residential communities being limited. Parks would optimally have a clear view to parents, police, the public and be in close proximity to public transit, foot, bike or vehicular access.

Other criteria calls for locating parks in highly visible areas with high pedestrian traffic while providing easy viewing for the public.

The Task Force visited 13 skate parks in Seattle and other cities. Each park they liked had benches or other features for members of the public to watch skateboarders do their thing.

"Having viewing is essential, it's a key component," said Parks Department Project Manager Susanne Friedman.

"People come and check out the skaters. It's (new Ballard Bowl) definitely more community oriented than the old bowl," said Shinn.

Park users routinely walk up to watch skateboarders skating back and forth along the curved walls of the bowl.

Skate advocates fought to keep the old bowl as it was. It was then included in the Ballard Common plans and the old bowl was demolished when park construction began.

Shinn goes to the bowl each morning for a workout. He says it can get crowded in the afternoon.

"The face of skateboarding is not just a 14-year old boy," said Freidman, and that was definitely in evidence on Saturday. One skater, Rob Skala, brought his skateboarding habit with him from California to Washington in 1963, and remembers when skates had steel wheels.

Skala spent the afternoon skating along with youngsters a quarter of his age. He's encouraged by the success of the bowl, and its popularity with young kids.

"We love seeing the kids start out...at first they can barely turn, and the next time you turn around, their tearing it up; the future rippers of America," Skala said.

Other Seattle communities are planning skate facilities in their neighborhoods.

Friedman said a group is now planning and fundraising to build a skate park for little kids at the Dahl playfield in Northeast Seattle.

Residents in the Roosevelt neighborhood also want to build a skate park at 65th and Roosevelt. On Beacon Hill, Jefferson Park has a Master Plan to expand the facilities there and space has been set aside for a possible skate park.

The skate park project at Lower Woodland Park - a 19,000 square foot facility, is slated for construction later this year. That project drew criticism from some neighbors who said they were uninformed about the plan to build the park. During the most recent Board of Parks Commissioners meeting on June 22, several commissioners voiced concern with how the skate park task force would properly inform neighborhoods about the potential for skateparks to be built.

"I don't want people coming back saying 'we had no idea this would happen to us'" said Board of Parks Commission Chair Kate Pflaumer.