Skate park shut down

A Glen Ellyn skate park is being shut down early due to repeated vandalism, park district officials said Thursday.

Sometime between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, unknown individuals vandalized the skate park and spray painted vulgar comments across the ramps at Newton Park for the third time in recent months.

Traditionally, the skate park opens in April and closes after the first snowfall of the season, but because of recent incidents, park officials plan to install surveillance cameras and close the park within the next couple days, Superintendent of Parks Dave Scarmardo said.

"Unfortunately, it's not fair to the kids that are using the park in the proper manner," he said. "You get a few bad ones and it hurts the good residents, but we're just not going to allow this kind of behavior at the skate park."

A similar incident occurred last month and ran up a clean-up bill of $6,000. Damage to the equipment prompted a three-week closing for repairs.

Officials said this time it's going to cost another few thousand dollars to fix the "substantial" graffiti all over the ramps.

"It's very expensive to maintain that, and to keep cleaning it up," Marketing and Communications Supervisor Kathleen Talenco said. "It's really hard to be able to provide that service to everyone when there's a group that keeps coming in with an intent of being destructive."

The skate park opened in 2002 after neighborhood kids and families attended special meetings and expressed an interest in a skate facility.

"There was just a definite need for this activity," Scarmardo said. "It's for the benefit of the kids, and for the most part, it's used heavily on a daily basis."