The Keystone Oaks School Board has rejected a proposal to give district land to the Pitcher Park Memorial Fund for building a skate park.

Mary Pitcher, a former Dormont resident now living in Scott, had sent a proposal asking Superintendent William Urbanek to allow her nonprofit organization to "build and donate to the Borough of Dormont/Keystone Oaks School District an admission-free community skate park to be constructed on Kelton Avenue on the land now commonly known as 'Kelton Field' to be used by skateboarders, bikers and bladers from Dormont, the surrounding communities and visitors to the park for many years to come and to memorialize Vincent and Stephen Pitcher."

The school board's decision came without a vote. The proposal was discussed informally among school board members at the Oct. 12 Finance and Facilities committee.

"We have a shortage of fields, and that field is used for soccer. We really don't know where those kids could play soccer if we didn't have that field. It's not the idea of the park, it's that we have a shortage of fields. If the students wouldn't be out of a field, we probably all would want it," Board President Marian Randazzo said.

For Mrs. Pitcher, who has been working to get a skate park built in Dormont to honor her extreme sports-loving sons who accidentally drowned last year, it marks the second rejection she has faced this month. Her original skate park proposal, which specified two locations on borough land -- one in Dormont Park about 240 feet from homes on Memorial Drive, the other on Banksville Road, in place of some borough tennis courts -- was defeated by a 5-2 Dormont council vote Oct. 5.

She's hopeful that with a new, potentially more agreeable council taking office in January, her initial proposal can succeed in a re-vote. Three of the four current council members whose seats are up this year voted against the proposal. Two of them -- Blair Brockmeyer and Tim McCoy -- are not seeking re-election.

At last week's "Meet the Candidates" function held at Dormont Library, of the seven candidates present, only two -- Democrats Laurie Malka and Heather Schmidt -- raised their hands when asked by a resident which of them favored the current skate park proposal.

Republican candidates Gary Reiche and Joan Hodson said that if certain particulars were addressed, they too could get behind the proposal to bring a skate park to Dormont.

"I was for it if more money was there upfront and some guarantees of maintenance money were made," Mr. Reiche said.

Mrs. Hodson agreed. Candidate Bradley Reitz, a Democrat, wasn't as willing to consider it. Mr. Reitz said he was adamantly opposed to the skate park proposal for a variety of reasons, including the loss of green space, the element it would attract, and the amount of maintenance that it would require over a period of time -- which he feared would fall on the borough.

"I know they've talked in the short term, 'We'll get grants, we'll get grants.' Well, grants have a way of drying up and at the end of the day; who's going to pay for it? Dormont's not in the position right now to pay for it long term," Mr. Reitz said.

At Monday's council agenda meeting, Council President John Maggio, who is running for mayor and opposes the park, reiterated his belief that a skate park would not physically fit in Dormont.

"We're the most densely populated community in Allegheny County. We're actually the most densely populated community in the state of Pennsylvania. We're less than one square mile. Unless we annex Green Tree, I don't see where we're going to come up with a piece of land."

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