Rachael Golden/The Gazette College student Lisa Jaeggi, catching some air on her skateboard Thursday in downtown Silver Spring, has made a skateboarding video to try to convince Silver Spring officials to create a skate park in the downtown area.

Over the years, Lisa Jaeggi and her two younger brothers have been performing ollies, kick flips and grinds with their skateboards on the sidewalks of downtown Silver Spring, including a downtown lot where a sign reads "No No Skating."

The extra "no" on the sign is symbolic for Jaeggi, since most of the time, "no skateboarding" is all she and other skaters hear, since there aren't any public areas near the downtown area for skateboarders.

"It's a big problem," she said. "Every time we try to skate anywhere, we get kicked out within 20 minutes. It's frustrating to have to constantly move from place to place."

So, after being escorted away or threatened by police, security guards and property owners for more than four years, Jaeggi, now a 20-year-old graduate of Montgomery Blair High School, decided to do something about it.

In her documentary, "No No Skateboarding," which was shown to members of the community Monday night, Jaeggi gave an audience of more than 100 a glimpse of what it's like to live as a frustrated skateboarder in Silver Spring.

Jaeggi made the 15-minute video to raise awareness about the problem and to illustrate the benefits of building a skate park in the area.

The video includes clips and interviews from a group of skateboarders from Silver Spring and Takoma Park who say they just need a place where they can go skate and have their freedom.

Making a video, she said, was the best way to educate people who didn't know anything about skateboarding and inform them of the seriousness of the problem.

"As skaters, we recognize that property owners, police officers, and others have expressed their disapproval of skating downtown," she said. "We want to show that a public skate park will give skaters a safe place to skate and will solve those problems."

Jaeggi said she hoped showing the video would rally support for a proposed skate area that would be constructed at Fenton Gateway Park, currently an open lot at the corner of East West Highway and Fenton Street.

Glenn Kreger, Park and Planning team leader for Silver Spring and Takoma Park, supports the idea. The Montgomery County Planning Board will consider the proposal at an April 7 hearing, he said.

If there is enough support, the county will decide whether to acquire the land.

Even if the proposal is approved and the funding can be provided, Jaeggi said she is still concerned the park will take between five and seven years before it is a reality.

"I'd like something sooner," she said. "Maybe we could build a temporary park somewhere else. Skateboarding is big here and Montgomery County needs to do more to accommodate the skaters."

Many youngsters and parents who attended the viewing of the video also supported the idea of setting up a temporary solution.

"I'm tired of skating in my neighborhood," said Charlie McGrady, 11. "People don't stop their cars for me and I've almost gotten run over like three times."

Caitlyn Edwards, 13, said she also feels strongly about the need for a public place to skate. "We need somewhere to go," she said. "Everywhere we go, we get thrown out or yelled at."

But some residents say building a skate park at the proposed Fenton Gateway Park will just bring unwanted noise and traffic to a residential area. Neighbors said they were surprised when they read about it in the local newspapers.

Kathy Jentz, who lives less than a block from Fenton Park, said she is not against skateboarders, but said that Fenton Gateway Park was never intended to be used as a skate park.

"The problem is not skateboarding at all," she said. "The problem is the fact that the area that would be used for the skate park has already been promised as a 'green' area where a city park would be built."

Jentz said Park and Planning began working toward that promise about five years ago, and she and other neighbors are now stunned that the plan may be replaced with a skating facility they fear may bring problems to the area.

Arlene Markowicz, also a neighbor of the Fenton Gateway Park, said it is not the best location. Not only will a skate park adversely affect the residential area, she said, it will also further encourage people to skate downtown in restricted areas.

"A lot of skaters will take Metro to come to the Fenton skate park, and they will be skating to and from the station through the downtown area," she said. "Skaters also get tired of being confined to skate parks and enjoy free-styling in urban environments where there are lots of curbs, staircases, handrails and smooth marble surfaces to skate on."

Kreger said many of the issues residents are worried about could be managed in the planning process further down the line.

"The Metropolitan Branch Trail could take the kids from Metro so they wouldn't have to be downtown," he said. "And things like noise and lighting, these are all things we'll deal with in the design process."

Though she knows she faces opposition, Jaeggi said the skate park will become a reality if enough people learn about the problem.

"We need to make people aware of the issue," she said. "The biggest problem is that people don't think it's a big deal. It comes down to whether the [county] can afford it, but we'll keep trying. The key is to never give up."