Asbury Park Skateboard Foundation location challenge
organizers ask community's help in locking in a location by May 15
Editor, Asbury Park Sun,
If you read the headlines of last week’s triCityNews, you’d get a visual of some environmental folks on one side of a park and some angry skateboarders on the other, waiting for the referee’s whistle, before charging full steam at one another in some primitive “winner take all event”. That’s hardly the case with the discussion over our skatepark proposal.
This time last year is when our foundation began working on ideas for how we could get a free, public skate park for the youth in Asbury Park. Initially we recruited members to our team, gathered property data, filed for 501(c)3 status and built a small website. Our goal was to first find a space, and then begin the process to raise funds for the construction of a state-of-the-art facility.
We reached out to groups like the Recreation Committee, Board of Education, the Housing Authority and Interfaith Neighbors to propose our idea and ask for assistance in finding a suitable city-owned location for the skate park.
After months of emails, site visits and various phone calls, we found this small section of Sunset Park. This wasn’t our first choice (Springwood Ave was always #1), but here we are. This space works very well with our vision and the City Council (members of which also sit on the Shade Tree Commission) has agreed.
The glaring difference in our position and that of the opponents of the location is how users should enjoy Sunset Park.
In our opinion, this space being restricted to a handful of festivals a year (just three in all of 2015) and shade for walking a block is not the best use of a park resource. Further, any park with signs that read “No Ball Playing, No Picnics and No Loitering” is underutilized. Our plans will make the park a desirable space for all to enjoy.
For those saying there are better available sites, we say: show us where and do it swiftly. We say that in all honesty, as we have looked for months. Where is there city-owned land — accessible to Asbury youth, near a highly visible traveling corridor — suitable for the skate park that many petition-signers, and even critics of our proposed location, agree is a great idea?
What we cannot accept is resistance or disagreement that leads to deadlock. Thus, here’s our challenge to all who claim to share our vision: help us lock in a location by May 15th of this year, including the possibility of Sunset Park as we’ve proposed. There are grant cycles to respond to, fundraisers to organize and donations of funds, materials, and volunteer time to solicit.
We believed to be past the site selection phase and are ready to begin these next critical steps in this project. Instead of squaring off, we invite everyone to be part of a timely solution.
Please send recommendations, concerns, or questions to skateasbury@gmail.com, and visit our website our website www.skateasbury.org for more information.
Brian Watkins and Derek Rinaldi
Asbury Park Skateboard Foundation
[This letter represents the opinion of its writer and is not representative of any opinion of the Asbury Park Sun staff. All readers are welcome to submit Letters to the Editor to news@asburyparksun.com for our consideration. For guidelines on letter-writing and submission, click here.]
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