By Sophie Pappas
At the May 14 meeting of the Zionsville Board of Parks and Recreation, the board heard the complaints of two young men hoping to change the way the town thinks about skate boarders and BMX bikers.
“The authorities have told me to leave or they would confiscate my bike,” said 17-year-old Zionsville resident, Anthony Cannon.
Cannon, who splits his time between his mom’s house in Zionsville and his dad’s house in Westfield, has been riding BMX-style bikes for more than two years.
His older sister’s boyfriend, Junar Gwinn, 24, first introduced him to the sport.
“We are BMX riders,” Gwinn said. “And the skate park in Zionsville doesn’t allow for bikes. We want to change this.”
According to Cannon, the Westfield Skate Park does allow for BMX bikes but the Zionsville park does not. He said that there are almost no differences in the layouts of the two parks, and they are made from the same materials.
“The authorities hear will tell you that our bikes will hurt the concrete at the Zionsville skate park, but our bikes are only 20 pounds, and nowadays we all use plastic pegs which wouldn’t harm the concrete at all,” Cannon said. “There’s no place in Zionsville that will let us ride our bikes legally.”
At the meeting, board president Steve Bullington asked Cannon and Gwinn if they believe the Zionsville skate park was designed for items larger than skateboards.
“I will not speak for the whole board,” Bullington said. “But [size]is my concern.”
Matt Dickey, the Supt. of Parks and Recreation, said that before he worked for the town, a committee designed and voted on the skate park’s design.
This committee agreed to not allow for bikes, because of liability and size concerns. Dickey said that the documents from these meetings state that if the park were to be used for BMX bikes it would take on a “very different design.”
“People spoke out against having bicycles from a safety viewpoint,” Dickey said.
The board agreed to continue discussing the matter with Cannon and Gwinn.
The next parks and recreation meeting is at 7 p.m., June 11, inside Zionsville Town Hall.
