Our Skateboard park is a park with a unique design.  It is a  place with the potential for providing    recreational opportunities for the youth of our community.  The park was built with volunteer labor and donated funds for our youth. The unique part of the design is that it was put together by the participants themselves and made to conform to the natural contours of the land it occupies.

Unfortunately, some problems have arisen that have made the park less then desirable.   Bullying, trash, vandalism, illegal drugs, alcohol and minors using tobacco have discouraged many in the community from making good use of the facility. 
There are five trash cans on site.  The parks crew spends close to 4 man hours a day in maintenance around the skate board area.  More time is spent here than any other single facility in any of our city parks.

1.  Provide housing for a caretaker.  Our Parks Director was hired May 1998.  He was paid considerably less than his predecessor.  A promise was made by the city to give additional compensation by providing a "caretakers house" on site ( Located: McCormick Park across from the skateboard park).   

     The building inspector would not approve the existing house, (repairs were estimated in excess of   $80,000).  It was wisely thought that the city could provide a manufactured home on site for less.   Presently, nothing has happened.  The parks director was forced to rent a home for his family without any additional compensation.  There was money in the city budget for a home.  While still Councilman,  Joe Corsiglia  asked Public Works to do something; (City Parks are under the control of Public Works - Councilman Randy Peterson) after numerous delays something finally happened.
The city finally constructed a modular home for the park caretaker.  This was something that was promised to him when he was hired some years ago.  It is the hope of everyone, that this will help discourage some of the vandalism and harassment problems that we are now experiencing in our parks.
2.  Provide a Distinctive Uniform for Parks Personnel. Users of our parks are unable to tell the difference between a parks employee and someone from the general public.  A uniform will also provide the public with additional assurance and  a feeling of safety while using our parks facilities.
This has never happened, what has happened is that we have less parks employees.

3. Give our parks people some authority.  Presently the only thing that Parks employees are empowered to do is ban a person from the skateboard park.  A "ban" is not effective, and is easily ignored.  The City Council needs to allow parks people the authority to write citations for violation of City rules while inside the parks.  This will help take a good deal of pressure off of our police and be able to make our parks a much safer place for the public to enjoy.

So far, the city has not made any attempt to give any additional authority to the parks personnel, although this is something that the Police Chief himself has suggested to them. The City Council has not had any recent discussions regarding this problem, and the Mayor's claim that he will be starting up a "Skate Park users group"  Never happened. 

It is my belief that the City should not ignore problems.  Ignoring them will not make them go away.  Instead of ignoring problems, they should make an active effort to help make our parks a safe and pleasant place for all.  Safety and a place for all to enjoy.  This is not an unreasonable request; particularly when we are the ones that are paying the taxes for this very purpose.