Harrisville skate park is open, council members say, but closed entrance causes confusion
Harrisville borough’s maintenance department closed the gated entrance of the borough’s skate park on Wick Avenue last week after receiving reports that a motorized vehicle had been driven into the park, posing a liability to the borough.
The chain around the gate had been cut, and a police report was filed Monday, Aug. 28, councilman Russ Stemmerich said. On Monday afternoon, Stemmerich, council member Gary Wray and members of the maintenance department gathered outside the skate park to discuss the incident. A new chain was put in place to keep the gate locked, they said.
About four smaller and more narrow entrances to the park remain open. The park itself is not — and has never been — closed, said council president Eric Snyder.
“All we did was close the gate to the one entrance,” Snyder said.
Without any signage stating otherwise, seeing the locked gate may indicate to children and parents that the skate park is closed, some Harrisville residents expressed on social media.
None of the smaller entrances are accessible by wheelchair, said Pam Walters, a resident of Slippery Rock who works with seniors in Harrisville. Besides being small and narrow, the entrances are slightly raised and are accessible only by walking on a patch of grass.
By contrast, the gated entrance is easier for seniors to access, Walters said.
“I park my handicapped bus over there,” she said. “It’s easier access to use to go through the skate park and to get to the paved walkway.”
The gated area also provides access for people with disabilities and parents with baby strollers, said council member Mary Ann Hughes, who was the only council member in favor of keeping the entrance open, Snyder noted.
The decision to close the main entrance was made after maintenance reports showed track marks on a ramp, Hughes said.
Hughes said Wray had proposed to close the park at the last agenda-setting meeting. Snyder said he could not recall who spearheaded the decision. Closing the gate did not need to be put to a vote because it was a public safety issue, Snyder said.
Council member Will McCoy said either the council president or someone in the parks department — of which Hughes is chairman — had made the decision.
Wray said Snyder had made the executive decision to close the gate last week for public safety reasons. The decision was not made at the agenda-setting meeting on Aug. 21 but later that week after Wray had been made aware of the track marks on the ramp, he said.
“The reason the gate is locked is because we’re trying to keep the kids safe,” Stemmerich said. “We don’t want ATVs or bicycles, or motorized vehicles running ramps while the kids are playing with their skateboards. Somebody’s gonna get hurt bad.”
“We didn’t want an ATV to damage equipment because ramps aren’t designed for that, and that can lead to someone getting hurt or equipment being damaged,” McCoy said. “We don’t want to close (the skate park), we want it to be used the way it’s supposed to be used.”
McCoy said he didn’t see a reason for the entrance to remain open at all, since the park is accessible through other entrances, and keeping the gate closed could prevent another incident of a motorized vehicle being driven into the park.
Hughes said council could instead consider implementing security cameras to dissuade people from driving their motorized vehicle through park equipment, something McCoy said would not be financially feasible for the borough.
“The way the budget is right now, it’s not financially possible,” McCoy said. “A good enough quality camera to catch a license plate or zoom in enough on a face … an extra high quality system, I don’t know what it costs.”
McCoy advised community members concerned about the gated entrance to visit the park for themselves.
