I first want to thank John Brittain and the Lewistown Skatepark Committee for their efforts to help the youth of
The skate park website, http://lewistownskatepark.com talks a lot about the benefits of a skate park but little about the funding and nothing about how it will be managed. Below is a starter list of questions.
What are the stipulations of the matching grant? Will the park be free for public use? If so, who will pay an adult to supervise the facility during the hours it is open? Depending on volunteers to man the park is extremely unreliable and volunteers will dry up once the novelty of it wears off. Who will pay the yearly costs of maintaining the park?
How much will the liability insurance cost? Will the park be open at night? If so, lights will need purchased and the cost of electricity must be considered? Will the facility have a telephone to be used for emergencies? Will users be required to wear helmets and follow other safety procedures and will adherence to these rules be enforced? Will there be adequate security from the local police to patrol the area regularly during its open hours? Will there be admission fee and snack bar to provide revenue to operate and maintain the park?
If the skate park operates like a local public swimming pool, then I have no problem with building it. At the local pool, parents are reasonably assured that their children are safe. However, if it is built and left alone for anyone to use like our local tennis and basketball courts, then it will become a hangout for crime that I wouldn’t allow my child to use, even if he were the next Tony Hawk.
3 comments:
I thought this was a fair blog. I agree with you also, more information is needed before I form an opinion on this.
All those questions , and the do it anyhow attitude is what got them where they are now . They keep insisting on Taxpayer money and all people are not gamblers when it comes to liability if something terrible would happen such as the case years ago where someone was sled riding on state property , then got hurt and sued them even without having their permission to use their property. Every time I hear about this skate park , it brings back memories of Shooters . Why should I think differently ?
At first the skate park committee went to the Lewistown borough to use Rec Park as a skate park , The insurance Company turned that idea down , ( strike one ) , then they went back to Lewistown Borough after they got some more support from within the councel , this time to use the area of the tennis court , again the Lewistown Borough reneged after saying yes and backed down from that after further study , so you can say that was ( strike two ), The borough has been taking a beating for reneging . So now they go to the school board and they come back and say their insurance agency said not to proceed down that road , so it sounds like that is ( strike three ) Are we out of strikes or are there more to come in this game ?
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