NORWAY – Complaints about skateboarders downtown prompted Town Manager David Holt to post special notices Tuesday.

“Attention Skateboarders” reads bold, italic letters across the top of each sheet, which he left at Main Street businesses such as the Fare Share Market. “There is a meeting concerning the new skateboard park at the superintendent of schools office (next to the Flagship Movie Theaters).”

The meeting Holt was referring to is of the Skateboard Park Planning Committee, and it’s scheduled for 2 p.m. today. The group, said member John Parsons, is trying to make good on a promise to build a skateboard park in Paris.

“We are still trying to sort out the what-can-we-do, what-can-we-get-done-that-still-meets-our-goals,” Parsons said, adding that the committee has less money than hoped. There’s not quite enough in the bank for the fantastic skateboard park envisioned by the committee when it started meeting nearly three years ago, he said, but there’s enough to get started with.

So far, the group has secured a $47,000 federal grant through the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands, Parsons said. It also has raised the required matching funds, meaning there’s about $94,000 earmarked for the project.

Of that money, Parsons said, a portion must be set aside for future maintenance of the park.

If all goes well, skateboarders at today’s meeting will be given the opportunity to vote on a series of possible skate park designs.

“This project is going to get done and the kids are going to have a safe place to practice this activity,” Parsons said. While the work has been delayed for years, he said, it’s possible the committee will break ground on the park in coming months and have it open before the first frost.

Holt said he hopes the park will take care of some of the complaints he has been receiving. He said the town has been reluctant to consider ordinances restricting skateboarders from sidewalks and public parking lots because that would leave many young people with nowhere to go.

“It’s pretty tough to turn them away when you don’t have anywhere to send them,” he said.

Holt did say skateboard-related complaints are on the rise.

On Thursday, a downtown resident at a Norway selectmen’s meeting complained that skateboarders have been taking to the streets at all hours.

On Tuesday, the Fare Share Market complained after a skateboarder walked into the store and stole two pints of ice cream.

Chris Farrar, owner of Ari’s and father of a 13-year-old skateboarder, hasn’t yet filed any complaints. But he’s concerned that skateboarders in the municipal parking lot are forcing people who fear damage to their cars to park on the street. Many businesses are taking prime spots on Main Street that should be left for customers, he said.

Farrar hopes the arrival of the long-awaited skateboard park will help.

“I know the kids, and 99 percent of them are good kids – they just need a place to go,” he said.