Volunteers from the Ballard Skatepark Project were disappointed to learn last week that part of the community project they have been working on for the last six months might be destroyed by Seattle Parks and Recreation. Kids, dads, and skaters from the Ballard community have been working since June to finish construction on a concrete skateboarding contraption simply called "the bowl."

According to Neighborhood Service Center Coordinator Rob Mattson at a Monday, December 10 meeting, Seattle Parks and Recreation claimed the concrete bowl may be nixed, in part because it was never a part of the original plan. Not so, says Chris Hildebrand, a skateboard activist who designed the park six months ago and whose drawings, which included the bowl, were approved by the parks department. "The bowl was always part of the original plan," he says. This disagreement is the latest setback in a standoff that has frustrated the Ballard skate set for two years.

The project began two years ago after two "skate dads," Todd Dickens and Frank Shields, petitioned the city to build a public skatepark. Currently, Seattle Parks and Recreation does not operate a single skatepark in Seattle, although there are a few run by other groups.

When the project initially took off in 1999, organizers received a $9,500 matching grant from the Department of Neighborhoods and began raising additional funds through T-shirt sales. The city finally granted the group a spot at Golden Gardens Park in Ballard in February 2001--but in March, Parks and Recreation suddenly pulled the plug on construction due to safety issues. Hildebrand pressured the parks department to provide another site, and ended up with the Ballard site, a city-run parking lot in front of a closed Safeway, at 5701 22nd Avenue NW.

Throughout the construction process, Seattle Parks and Recreation has repeatedly imposed setbacks, according to Hildebrand. "Anytime anyone would complain, [the city] threatened to shut the project down. They kept trying to trip us up every chance they got," Hildebrand says.

Seattle Parks and Recreation spokesperson Dewey Potter acknowledged that there have been complaints. According to Potter, older kids were monopolizing the park, kids were in the park after closing, and a fabric store near the skatepark was tagged with graffiti.

Since construction began last summer, the parks department has repeatedly stopped work on the bowl due to drainage problems. Each time, Hildebrand was able to persuade the parks department that the bowl could be completed, and construction resumed. (The other major components of the park, the street course and a half-pipe, were completed in August and are open for use.)

The final setback came several weeks ago when the parks department again threatened to kill the skate bowl. Potter explained that there are still serious sewer problems.

Skate kid Allen Shields, 14, has been working on this project with his brother Robert, 10, for two years. "We worked on this every day this summer, sometimes at night. I like the bowl, and I know a lot of people who worked on the bowl would be mad. They were really counting on that," Allen says.

Potter says, "We've never done a skatepark before, and this is a trial-and-error thing for us. It's been a learning experience for us as well as for them."