Jonathan Kohl may not be from Bonney Lake, but he understands what the city’s teens have to deal with.

A few years ago, Kohl, now 25, was dating a girl who worked at the Fred Meyer store and he would wait for her to get off work and watch the scene around him.

“I spent my time in the Fred Meyer parking lot,” he said. “These woods? I know what they do out there.”

Kohl said he would watch groups of aimless teenagers loiter in the parking lots, disappear into the woods and do all sorts of other questionable things, simply because, it seemed, they were bored.

“I would just watch them pickpocket things all the time,” he said. “It was an aimless thing.”

Kohl said he would argue with his girlfriend about how teens in Bonney Lake needed somewhere else to go, something to do.

“I thought ‘Why doesn’t somebody just make something up there?’” he said.

As it turns out that somebody may just be Kohl.

Last week, Kohl and his grandmother, Mary Wisner, presented a new idea to the council, a privately-run venue for kids ages 13 to 20 called “Club 101.”

The idea is still in its infancy, but Kohl and Wisner have been speaking with city officials and presented their idea to the council to make sure it is something that would be welcomed in the city. Their presentation went well and most of the council expressed hope that their project would come to fruition.

The four-page plan presented to the council details a venue complete with a dance floor, arcade, lounge areas and more, all kept safe through the use of a swipe card system that would come with membership, projected to be approximately $30 per month.

Kohl and Wisner have put a lot of thought into the swipe card system, which they said would help not only with security, but allow parents to check in on students, to make sure their children are where they say they are.

While the pair are very enthusiastic about their idea— and received a favorable response from the city council as well as Police Chief Mike Mitchell, with whom they met for more than an hour — as of yet, they have no funding for their project.

Wisner said they are hoping to get grant money to allow them to proceed and have started the process to form a non-profit corporation to allow them to collect donations.

But they have been encouraged by the response so far.

“All that was needed up here was someone to come in and say ‘lets do it,’” Wisner said.

“Their plan is to provide a safe place for kids to go and have something to do. That’s been needed on the plateau for years,” Mitchell said. “We need something up here.”

But again, Mitchell was skeptical the funding would come through for a project the size of what Wisner and Kohl envision.

But that has dampened their spirits at all and they have already begun looking for a suitable location, preferably near the Regal Cinemas and the forest where teens hang out anyway.

“I never said it was going to be easy,” Wisner said.

“But nothing’s impossible,” Kohl added.