Village Attorney Shuts Down Tinley Park Neighbors' DIY Ice Rink

TINLEY PARK, IL — A DIY skating rink is now sitting vacant in a retention area in the Timbers Pointe subdivision while village officials work with neighbors to find a solution to the icy situation.

Elizabeth Keblusek, a Timbers Pointe resident for almost 20 years, said her sons, 13 and 9, came up with the idea for the ice rink, having played in that area their entire lives. The children often use the village-owned space as a baseball field or open land to run around, she said.

A few weeks ago, they joined neighbors in building the rink, complete with a tarp-and-plywood base and three days worth of frozen water. The retention area is designed to catch overflow water when it rains, so the group knew the rink couldn't be permanent, but they didn't expect village code enforcers to shut it down.

"They basically said we couldn't have it here, that it was too dangerous and too loud," Keblusek said.

According to Village Manager Pat Carr, the rink presents a safety issue. As a private project built on public land, Carr said anyone could wander onto the ice. While there's no risk of someone falling into a nonexistent pond below, someone could still hurt themselves and sue the village for their injuries.

Carr told Patch it's a common lawsuit.

When a cold front hit the southwest suburbs late last year, Keblusek said her children found a patch of ice covering the bottom of the retention field. With some help from an older neighbor, they slid around on the surface until the streetlights came on. Keblusek said that was when she and a few other neighbors decided to take advantage of the land.

A local resident alerted village officials to the ice rink when they complained about the noise level in the retention plot. Keblusek said no one knows who the complainer was, but she was puzzled on how the noise level — which never went past 9 p.m. — could have bothered someone in her neighborhood.

Keblusek and her neighbors are still hoping to find a way to keep their neighborhood project for the rest of the winter. In a now-viral social media post, the mother of three reached out to Tinley Park Mayor Mike Glotz to find a middle ground.

"I think the rink looks amazing and everyone did an amazing job," Glotz wrote in an email to Keblusek. "However, there are many different things to consider. What if your neighbor wanted to build a basketball court at that location for the summer? Would everyone be ok with that too?"

According to Keblusek, she would. In the short time the ice rink has been up, she said the attraction has drawn neighbors ages 2 to 60. While she understands the village has a job to do, she said she hopes to find a solution that will preserve the sense of community she and her neighbors found at the ice rink.

While there is a local park district ice rink off 171st Street, Keblusek said the crowded destination wasn't what she had in mind.

"We as a community wanted to make somewhere safe where there wasn't a bunch of people," she said. "In this COVID world, if we are going to an area with a ton of people, then that ruins the point. We wanted a safe place for our kids to go, and it became more of a thing for everyone. We all hung out down there where the kids were skating. We all had cups of coca and got to safely see one another."

Keblusek met with village officials Wednesday evening to discuss a way to keep the rink in operation until warmer weather melts it for good. Keblusek said she hopes waivers, signs that say "skate at your own risk," or promises of parent supervision could be solutions."