Trouble on 23rd Street - Part 2

The skate park at Hill Park on 23rd Street opened three years ago to fill a need for Independence’s youth.

Today the park sits at the center of the debate over how to stop a surge of vandalism on 23rd Street. 

City Council Member Jim Page said at a meeting of the Independence Business Crime Task Force on June 26 that he wants the park shut down. 

“All of a sudden, it’s turned into a gang banger magnet out of Kansas City,” Page said. 

The meeting’s attendees agreed the park is a good thing because there was a need for a park like it, but some say it has had unintended consequences. 

“It’s said, ‘The road to hell is paved with good intentions,’” Page said. “And (the skate park) is just another paving stone.”

Skateboarders encountered this week at the park say they use it as intended.

Geoff Willard, a 26-year-old skater who goes to the park every day, said the skaters there are trying to get better at the sport and make teams. 

“There is a bad element that causes problems,” Willard said. “Most people here are building skill rather than just wasting time.”

Willard says there are the occasional problems, but the skaters should not be blamed. He said that people were committing crimes before the skate park was installed. Jonny Fikes, 15, agrees, saying he thinks the crime problems are not caused by the skaters. 

“People want to use it as a scapegoat to destroy the park.”

Corey Aquino, 15, said he comes from 2 miles away to use the park. He thinks the graffiti in the park stays in the park.

“I think spray painting stays here,” Aquino said. “Skaters don’t mind spray paint. We invite people if they want to paint.”

The Independence Parks and Recreation Department has another mindset though. Department Director Eric Urfer said the department had a group of art students paint the park’s bowl last year, but it was soon defaced by graffiti, forcing it to be covered in a solid color. Today the park’s bowl is riddled with graffiti, even though Urfer said the department has a policy of removing graffiti within 48 hours of discovering it. He said it is hard to keep up, and since the skate park is hard to see from other areas of the park, covering it is not a top priority.

Urfer said if the vandalism and graffiti continue to escalate, closing the park would be an option, though he said no such action is imminent. 

Willard says the graffiti in the neighborhood would decrease if it were allowed in the park. He said it would also become more well-known, as an “art skate.” Many users of the park, including Aquino, don’t like the graffiti. He called the graffiti in the bowl “just a bunch of scribbles.”

“They (paint in the neighborhood) because somebody made them stop,” Willard said. “If they could paint and not get in trouble then they would stay here.”

Elisa Breitenbach, owner of Little Bits, just off 23rd Street, said her business has experienced several cases of vandalism including break-ins, graffiti and thefts. Breitenbach does not want to see the skate park closed. She said she is going to start visiting the skate park one evening a week to talk to the skaters and their parents. 

“I’m going to be at the skate park,” Breitenbach said. “I’m going to educate other parents on the crime in the area.”

Many others do not want the skate park to be closed, but just controlled. 

Babir Sultan, owner of Valero, across the street from the park, says crime occurs at his business during the night. He said he thinks the crime originates at the skate park, but he does not want the park closed, saying it is only a few of the teens who vandalize his store. He said it is just those who use the park after it is supposed to close; at dusk. He does not want to take the park away from those who use the park during the daytime. 

“It’s not their fault,” Sultan said. 

A&M Cleaners, next door to Valero, has experienced a few cases of graffiti and one break-in in the last year. Manager Kellie Swenson sees a community-based approach, rather than just shutting down the park as the solution. 

“You see spray paint up and down the street,” Swenson said. “We need to get the community together to make this stop. It’s not all the kids, just a few.” 

Swenson said she would like a sign put in at the park to let skaters know that they could lose their park if crime continues and to call police if they knew about any vandalism in the area. She would also like to see Independence ban the sale of spray paint to people under 18. She said the graffiti was painted and the break-in occurred at the cleaners during the night, after the park is closed. She estimates 80 percent of the crime in the area is committed by teenagers. 

Eddie Tadkesaria owns the Church’s Chicken at 23rd Street and Ralston Avenue. He said his store is vandalized three to four nights a week, despite floodlights in the parking lot. Tadkesaria summed up what merchants in the area think will stop the crime; and it has nothing to do with the skate park. 

“I tell you what it’s going to take – a few more cops,” Tadkesaria said. 

Sultan and Swenson echoed that idea. They have even stopped calling the police to report some of the vandalism. Tadkesaria says he still calls the police, but his patience with the police is wearing thin. 

“They’ve broken in several, several times,” Tadkesaria said. “It’s getting where you just want to say ‘screw it’ (about calling the police). Nobody’s doing anything about it anyway.” 

When asked during the crime task force meeting about putting more police officers on patrol in the area, Independence Police Officer Rob Romey simply said, “We don’t have them.”

Romey is part of the department’s Community Services Division, which he said communicates with the public about long-term solutions to crime and, among other things, organizes neighborhood crime watches. He said after the meeting that he would look into the source of the crime and what can be done. 

“It’s hard to say where it’s coming from for sure,” Romey said. “After the meeting, I started talking to my commanders to come up with a solution, see if it’s the park or surrounding areas. We’ve got to investigate and see what we can do.”

Independence Police Department spokesman Tom Gentry could not be reached this week for information about crime levels in the area.

Breitenbach is leading the charge to organize a neighborhood watch among local business owners. 

She wants business owners to post pictures of people who are wanted for crimes in the area inside their store. While she thinks a watch program can help cut down on crime, even Breitenbach though thinks more police officers on the street are key to putting an end to the crime. 

“I can’t say it enough,” Breitenbach said. “We need more police.”