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Editorial: City needs to decide now on skatepark

May 06, 2004

The frustration local skateboarders are feeling over the slowness of the Danville City Commission to build a skatepark has been shared by many other local residents, over many other local issues since Mayor John Bowling was returned to office in November 2002.

After the mayor and his supporters on the commission fired former city manager Steve Biven, it took the commission nearly a year to hire a new one. When the city commission was looking for a site for a new fire station, it waited until a year, and a 50-percent rise in the price, had passed before it finally took action.

Now city officials are toying with the skateboarders. The money - $45,000 - is in the budget to build the park, but the city's young people are still waiting for a facility.

What are Mayor Bowling and the other city commissioners waiting for? This issue has been thoroughly hashed out and discussed. Certainly after two years of debate, all of the pros and cons of the skatepark issue have been laid on the table.

Can't the commissioners just make a decision? The issues are clear. Is the city going to build a skatepark? If so, where?

Our view is that the city needs to build a skatepark. The city's skaters need a safe place to practice their sport. The community has built soccer fields, baseball fields, softball fields, football fields and walking and jogging trails where other residents - young and old - can enjoy the physical activity of their choice. Now it's time to build something for the skaters.

As to where it should be built, the city and the skaters probably would be happier in the long run with a skatepark in Millennium Park. In the short run, the city can buy the equipment with the money budgeted and set it up on the tennis courts at Jackson Park. That way, a skatepark would be ready for the kids - and adults, too - this summer. If the worst fears of residents who live near the park are realized, the equipment can be moved next year to a new site in Millennium.

Either way, the residents of this town need to know whether their mayor and city commissioners are capable of doing what they were elected to do - make decisions about the community's future.

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