Under City Pressure, Skateboarders Fill In Pool

The skateboard pool under the Schmitz Park bridge is ready for use. . . . Not!

Just the opposite: Skaters have filled in with dirt the secretly constructed pool, just one week after Seattle police cited them for destruction of public property.

In a loosely guarded secret in the local skater community, skateboarders clandestinely excavated the pool at the West Seattle park for more than three months.

They had reinforced steel in place and were about to mix more than 200 bags of concrete when police arrived last Sunday in five squad cars and intervened.

Skateboarders commonly use empty swimming pools (or ramps) so they can perform maneuvers that require them to reach high speeds on nearly vertical concrete banks.

The city parks department objected. It ruled the project had no official approval, posed liability concerns and was constructed in a natural-state park where few trees are cut down and few human improvements are made.

The project, nevertheless, caught some people's imagination. In the past few days, someone has spray-painted a message on the park path giving one side of the issue: "Let Them Finish!" An arrow points to the site of the outlawed skate bowl.

The city has suggested to the five skaters cited by police that they would not press charges if the men - all in their 20s - filled in the pool and restored the area under the bridge to its original condition, said Mike Swim, one of the skaters.

"But they didn't make us any promises," Swim added.

It took skaters Saturday and Sunday to fill in the pool, which measured about 50 feet by 20 feet and, in one end, was more than 8 feet deep.

An organization called Sea Sk8 planned this week to turn in a proposal to the parks department for a skating facility to be operated by a nonprofit group in partnership with the city, said Roger Stocker, a local architect active in Sea Sk8.

Stocker, who has a 16-year-old skateboarding son, said he talked last week with the parks department - soon after the Schmitz Park pool became public. He said parks officials encouraged him to turn in the Sea Sk8 proposal.