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Chances are 31-year-old Neal Boyd has been chased down by the cops more than you. Because Baton Rouge is without a public concrete skate park, experienced skaters like Boyd utilize private or state-owned architecture for riding at night. At least he used to. The Baton Rouge Web designer did what any reasonable person would do when his favorite sport is criminalized. He moved to Hammond.

Last year, Hammond Recreation hired renowned consultants Dreamland to build a 10,000-square-foot, $298,000 skateboard facility at Zemurray Park. To meet growing demand a 4,500-square-foot addition was completed last April. The park attracts young people year-round and tops anything BREC has to offer in the Capital City.

“I was going to Hammond a few times a week to visit people anyway. So when the park opened, I knew I needed to move there,” Boyd says. “I’m 31—in skateboarding years, that makes me about 90—and I don’t want to be an old guy with a career getting arrested in downtown Baton Rouge for skateboarding.”

The city does have two options for skateboarders: BREC’s Velodrome, a combination modular skate and BMX facility on Perkins Road and Revolution Skatepark, a private, pay-to-ride park off Siegen Lane.

The problem is Velodrome does not challenge riders with more than a year or so of experience, says Reno Broussard who operates popular skate shop Urban 9 on Government Street. Boyd calls it “$23,000 of pure aluminum crap,” likening BREC’s decision to purchase modular ramps at Velodrome to building a golf course without holes.

The result: Frustrated skateboarders are driving 45 miles to Hammond for their favorite sport. “Baton Rouge kids are looking for a place to skate,” says Hammond Recreation Director Joey Keener. “They’re coming here, so we’re happy.” The key, Keener says, was Hammond Mayor Mayson Foster and Councilman Tony Liciardi listened to their citizens.

Though still in the planning and fund-raising phase, Ascension Parish has set a goal of opening a large skate plaza—possibly up to 35,000 square feet—within 18 months.

“BREC has a lot more money than we do,” says Sherry Kinchen, recreation director for Ascension. “But when you build a park of major proportions, skaters and their families are coming from all over the country. If [Ascension] only gets one shot at it, we want it to be big enough to incorporate everything the skaters want.”

Based largely on a push from the Baton Rouge skateboarding community and state Sen. Sharon Weston Broome, legislators in 2001 unanimously passed Act 1199 to limit the liability of public parks in cases of injury on the premises. The law has surely saved and will continue to save parks associations across the state millions they would have otherwise spent defending lawsuits.

Following the passage of such a law, the average span from skate park concept to completion is two to three years, says Miki Vuckovich, executive director of the Tony Hawk Foundation. But for Baton Rouge, it has been nearly six years, and BREC has yet to finalize a plan.

“Cities that don’t yet have skate parks are more likely to be near a town that does,” Vuckovich says of the Baton Rouge-Hammond scenario. “They see the effects of the park—the popularity, the low incidence of injuries and, in cases like Louisville, the phenomenon of families coming to town on vacation so their kids can visit the skate park. How many cities have municipal ball fields that attract tourists?”

The Louisville Extreme Park Vuckovich cites was championed by Mayor Dave Armstrong who worked tirelessly to bring a first-class skate facility to Louisville in 2002. A year later, Gary Patureau, president of SABR, the Skatepark Association of Baton Rouge, invited Armstrong to the city.

Armstrong met with Metro Council members, then-Mayor Bobby Simpson and BREC’s new superintendent at the time, Doug Thornton. Armstrong says Thornton seemed hesitant to commit to such a large project during his first few months at BREC. >>

“Baton Rouge needs to take the next step and get its government to find ways to fund a skate park,” Armstrong says. “It’s too bad the city doesn’t have one already, considering the amount of time it’s been discussed, and with the university and the growing population. Our park has been an economic boom to the area surrounding it.”

Back in April, BREC Assistant Area Supervisor Jason Hoggatt, perhaps the skate community’s biggest ally at the parks organization, showed Patureau an informal proposal calling for construction of a 20,000-square-foot concrete park behind Velodrome at Perkins Road and Kenilworth Boulevard.

“We’re in the very early planning stages, but we have what we need,” says Hoggatt, a 31-year-old who describes his job as having to smooth over bad feelings between BREC and the skate community.

Patureau is hopeful, but weary from the fight. “We should be much further along,” he says. “This is a basic proposal that takes us back to square one of the debate. To get the best investment, this park has to be developed by the skating community. [BREC Superintendent] Bill Palmer believes that, but he’s asked us repeatedly over a three-year period to give BREC more time.”

Boyd scoffs. Many of the 500 SABR members voted for the BREC tax increase in 2004 because they were told $775,000 would be used to meet the city’s skateboarding needs. Included in BREC’s strategic plan were two surveys showing skate parks are a top priority for Baton Rouge.

At a July meeting, Palmer assured Patureau between $500,000 and $750,000 in funding would be made available for the new facility behind Velodrome. As far as a timetable, Palmer says all eight of BREC’s planned signature parks will be developed simultaneously and take about three years to complete starting from the first round of public input meetings held this fall. The first skate park meeting is scheduled for Sept. 12.

“I have nothing for BREC,” Boyd says shaking his head. But as Boyd feels betrayed by the parks commission, Patureau holds on to his dream of city officials green-lighting a 100,000-square-foot $1.7 million skate park. Such a park would be the largest in the country and, based on the success of the Louisville Extreme Park, a magnet for tourists and young people nationwide.

“Along I-10 from San Diego to Jacksonville, Fla., there is not a single park of significant size,” Patureau says. “We want to build a skate park that is an economic development tool for the city-parish. Our ultimate goal is to put a park right here on the river and have the X Games on the Mighty Mississippi.”

A glimmer of hope could be found in the new riverfront master plan designed by Hargreaves & Associates. One version of this plan sets aside three acres of green space next to a baseball stadium and condos. Patureau is pushing for that space to be a massive skate park. But when he met with Mayor Kip Holden in July, Holden said he had never been shown a master plan that included a skate park and added he would only support placing the park downtown if it was part of the Hargreaves plan.

“A skate park isn’t highlighted in the master plan, but there would be space for it,” says Davis Rhorer, director of the Downtown Development District. What remains to be seen is whether BREC’s proposed new facility on Perkins Road will effectively kill any hopes of a larger skate park downtown.

Meanwhile, Patureau has seen his son, Austin, grow from a 12-year-old beginner when Baton Rouge’s quest for a skate park began into a 17-year-old who will may be a college graduate by the time a BREC skate park is open for business.

“They’re losing an entire generation of skaters who have waited for this park,” Patureau says. “Even badminton and croquet have their own parks. Even though BREC does not see economic development as their mission, as a taxpayer, I do.”