Skaters unite
Friends push park proposal to City Council

If you give Zac Cawthorn a skateboard, he can pull off a body variable pop shove-it 180 without flinching. And yes, it’s as difficult as it sounds.

But speaking before the Hendersonville City Council on behalf of skateboarders, that’s a whole other matter.

Zac, 15, and four friends pitched plans for a skateboard plaza to the City Council on Thursday night. He was a little nervous taking the podium in front of 30 people.

That’s because the meeting was the culmination of months of work for Zac, Chris Merker, 16, Justin Hayes, 14, and twin sisters Amy and Jenny Mathison, 16.

But in the end, Zac had no reason to be nervous. The teens came prepared, citing everything from shop owner surveys and state liability laws to medical journals and city ordinances.

“Your findings from the survey speak volumes about the direction we need to go,” Mayor Greg Newman told the teens. “What I’d like to do is see what is possible for us as a city to provide, and I think we’ll take a very serious look at it.”

The teens, who met through the Henderson County Homeschool Association, share a love for skateboarding. They say they also share a problem — there is nowhere to legally skate in Hendersonville.

So in February, the friends decided they would take action. They formed the Hendersonville Kids Alliance to Skate and hashed out plans to bring a skate plaza to their hometown.

“There’s nothing to do in Hendersonville,” Zac said before the meeting. “We pretty much skate at each other’s houses, and anywhere we can get permission. If you skate, you have to practice. We need somewhere to practice.”

Zac kicked off the presentation by inviting city leaders “to see Hendersonville through the eyes of the skater.” He cued the city clerk to play a video, and soon the ‘70s song

“Signs, signs everywhere there’s signs,” blared as NO SKATEBOARDING signs flashed on the screen — one in front of the Visitor’s Center, another in front of the Post Office, others outside churches, doctor’s offices and the library.

It was only part of the pitch.

Before the meeting, the friends collected petition signatures. They made T-shirts, created a logo of a man skateboarding. They handed out fliers. They even launched a Web site, www.skatehendersonville.com

The teens went door to door downtown, collecting signatures and support from merchants. Thirty-six merchants signed on, including shop owners who have had trouble with skateboarders on Main Street. The teens behind the Kids Alliance to Skate say they do not condone misbehavior and would not tolerate it at any facility they support.

Barbara Hughes, the president of the Downtown Hendersonville Merchants Alliance, urged city leaders to support the teens. The prospect also gained support from Executive Director Lee Henderson-Hill and the board members of Downtown Hendersonville Inc.

Henderson-Hill conducted a survey downtown, in which 65 of the 69 respondents said they would support the skate plaza.

“We see this as a win-win for everybody,” Henderson-Hill said.

Amy quoted state laws that said the city would not be held liable for accidents at the skate plaza. Chris discussed the social benefits the skate plaza would bring, Jenny talked about the health benefits of the sport and Justin presented city leaders with the plans for the first skate plaza, built in Kettering, Ohio.

The teens even issued news releases to the media.

“According to recent statistics, in 2002, there were about 16 million skateboarders and an estimated 400 public skate parks,” one release said. “That number is up from 11.5 million skaters in 2000. Incidentally there were only 9 million little league baseball players in the U.S., yet most cities with multiple baseball fields had yet to build skate parks.”

The plaza would differ from the common skateboard park. It would hold obstacles for street skating — stairs, ledges and rails skaters could grind and jump. But it would also host green space and landscaping.

“It’s a place they can have festivals, music,” said Priscilla Cawthorn, Zac’s mother. “It’s for all ages, a park for all ages.”

When it comes to money, the teens are exploring corporate sponsorship from the skateboarding industry and other companies. Grants are also available.

The skate plaza that opened last year in Kettering, Ohio, cost $600,000, the tab covered by a professional skateboarder, the town and a shoe company. A photo of the Kettering skate plaza can be found on the teens’ Web site, plus a national news article about the unique center.

“If we get this, it will be really big,” Zac said. “People all over America will come to it.”