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It may be one of the subjects the P-I used to deride the City Council lately, but we're happy to see someone paying attention to a form of recreation in this city that doesn't involve fleece, lycra or gortex. Skateboarding exists in the collective mind of the city government - That's a good thing.
This is from a flyer we picked up over the weekend at Gasworks:
That's a lot of skateparks. It's a pretty great plan, actually, but we're skeptical that the majority of them will ever get built. Most will go the way of the Woodland Park skatepark which, you'll notice, is nowhere on the map; NIMBYed out of existence before the first bag of 'crete was ever hauled to the site. Right now a lot of concerned citizens --Friends of Whatever and the like-- are taking a long hard look at that map and searching for the icon nearest to their house. "Oh the racket," they're thinking, "Oh, the Bad Elements." Yeah, grubby guys making some noise while they express a little physicality through skateboarding are one of the city's most pressing problems. Let's build a few more tennis courts and lawn bowling pitches instead.
Old Man NIMBY, get thee to one of the public meetings next week and raise all hell about the square of concrete the Parks Department plans to pour eighteen blocks from your condo. Ten or fifteen years from now the entire city will be a sterile retirement community, but at least we won't have any damn skateboarders pulling their shenanigans.
Monday, October 2, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Garfield Community Center
2323 E Cherry St.Thursday, October 5, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Delridge Community Center
4501 Delridge Way SWSaturday, October 7, 1:00-3:00 p.m.
Northgate Community Center
10510 5th Ave. NE
We couldn't find skateparks in the budget the Mayor just released, but they must be in there somewhere under Recreation Facilities Programs or General Subfund or something. Golf is in there by name. Golf Budget Control Level gets $7.7M in 2007, but there's no skateboarding mentioned in the budget.
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I find it incredible that my hometown of 2200 in the middle of nowhere managed to build a skatepark while Seattle barely makes an effort to give these damn hooligans a place to grind or whatever they're calling it these days.
As a father of a small child, living 2 blocks from the proposed Regional skate park at Magnusson Park, I only have one thing to say. BUILD THE DAMN SKATE PARK. I'd much rather have my child hang out and learn how to grind, than staring at a weed filled lot waiting for the Mayor to do something with it.
I live near the Shoreline skatepark, and I love seeing kids heading to and from the area with their skateboards. Keeps them busy, keeps the neighborhood active and lively. Kids of all ages -- primary school through (and beyond) high school. I don't live across the street from the park, but I've never seen a Bad Element when I've visited.
I'll be checking out the one for Garfield on Monday the 2nd...