By Colin McEwen

Record-Courier staff writer

Tony Hawk is chipping in $5,000 to help Ravenna build its skatepark -- and also contributing his ideas.

His foundation is the latest contributor to the project, giving skateboarders a place to develop their talents.

The skatepark will be built on the current site of the tennis courts at the back of John Tontimonia Park, with the work expected to begin early this summer.

Dylan Myers, 13, says he just wants a safe place to ride his skateboard.

The seventh-grader at Brown Middle School has skateboarded for the last three years, and has been constantly asked by downtown business owners to take his sport somewhere else.

With no other place to go, Myers admitted to riding his skatepark in such public haunts as the library and the abandoned Tops grocery store.

His dream of having a skatepark in Ravenna is coming true, with city plans to construct the skatepark equipped with ramps, rails and a half-pipe.

"I can actually have a place to skateboard without getting into trouble," Myers said. "I am excited -- I'm going to get a new skateboard."

The city began talks of developing a skatepark in 2003, after numerous complaints from business owners about skateboarders trespassing on their property.

Parks and Recreation Director Kathy Hammonds said she and a handful of Ravenna youths and local skateboarding advocate Josh Dobrilovic met in November to design the park.

The original designs were sent to the Tony Hawk Foundation in California, then returned with the skateboarding legend's handwritten modifications.

The city also was awarded a $5,000 grant from the foundation, in addition to a $10,000 grant from the Ravenna United Fund. The grants will go toward the cost of the park, with an estimated price tag of $70,000. The project is expected to go out for bidding Feb. 21.

Hammonds said the skateboarding youths are not troublesome -- as some of the common stereotypes go.

"These kids are really athletes," she said. "It's criminalized because they don't have a place to skate."

Dobrilovic agreed.

"It's a sport," he said. "And kids are going to skate one way or another. We may as well have a place for them."

Dobrilovic said he is hoping the city allows the skaters to skate past dark, but added that he would be "happy with anything."

Miki Vuckovich, the executive director of the Tony Hawk Foundation said the foundation's are "quite competitive," adding that skateparks are important to communities across the country.

He said he credits the youth in Ravenna collaborating with leaders to have the park built.

"It's easy for the police and the business owners to find skateboarders and send them elsewhere," he said. "But, sometimes, they just don't have anywhere else to go."