Jackson Park

HARRODSBURG - Kids may soon be doing handplants and ollies in Harrodsburg. The Anderson-Dean Community Park board voted Tuesday to recommend that the local governments raise money for a skatepark. They studied the issue for 90 days, and once board members saw a petition with the signatures of 200 kids, they knew there was a need, Bill Wickliffe, board chairman, said today in a telephone interview. The board hopes to build a park for $80,000. County and city governments told the park board that they would try to raise the money through grants and donations.

They got it. They think they got it. Well, they are almost sure they got it. It already felt like summertime inside city hall, the air conditioner was broken, but that didn't deter more than 60 kids, their parents and Jackson Park residents from packing the Commission meeting Monday to hear a debate about a skatepark. The commissioners voted to buy the equipment and let the park and recreation board recommend where to put it. The board has already said the facility should be put in Jackson Park.

Dear Editor: I am not a skateboarder. But I am a homeowner in the Jackson Park neighborhood, and I'm writing in favor of locating a skatepark there. While I can understand the objections of those living on access roads to the park, surely all of us who live in the neighborhood understood when we bought homes here that we were adjacent to a public park. As a minister and an adjunct professor at UK, I think I understand something of the frustrations of many young people who are often perturbed by, even alienated from, the deliberations of "adult" society.

Dear Editor: In regard to a recent letter stating that Jackson Park belongs to the community: Yes, I agree, but let me state a few facts. First of all, my husband and I have lived at 602 Parklawn Drive since March 1968, and the tennis court at Jackson Park is directly behind our house. While living on Parklawn, we have seen many disturbing and annoying happenings at the park. The previous basketball court had to be done away with due to excess noise, foul language, alcohol and a large amount of traffic.

It's become a civics lesson. Teenagers gathered outside city hall Tuesday for a rally. They held hand-painted signs, some mounted on handlebars and broomsticks, to get their slogans out: "Have a Heart Build a Skatepark," "Stop Putting Us Off" and "Build It. " The athletes have turned activists. David Trizna, 14, was there wearing his Eisenberg Skate team T-shirt. He and his family just moved to Danville from Eisenberg, Texas. He said he was excited to move here because his family saw on the Internet that Danville was working on a skatepark.

Dear Editor: "If you build it, they will come" - a famous line from the movie "Field of Dreams. " It's a great story about a man who is determined to build a baseball park in his backyard against community opposition. The property owners around Jackson Park who oppose the skating facility to be built (who I have yet to see show up at any city commission meetings) should pause and reflect back to the day they decided to purchase their home, when their agent enthusiastically pointed out, "...and there's a park just down the street.

Dear Editor: I don't want to see another summer go by without a skate park either. I don't know any of these kids or their parents, but I've seen the skateboarders around town trying to find a place to practice their sport. I've also followed the shameful stall by our city commissioners in proceeding with the promised and budgeted for skate park for these athletes. Mayor John Bowling and Commissioner Chester Kavanaugh have said they would not vote for the skate park at Jackson Park, although a good, fenced tennis court surface already exists there and the budgeted $50,000 could, therefore, be spent on the needed modules.

Parks and Recreation has a spot for the skatepark - Jackson Park, but at least two Danville City Commissioners said Tuesday they aren't voting for it. John Drake, parks director, told the commissioners that the skatepark is on a master plan for Jackson Park, along with a BMX section, croquet court, horseshoes, volleyball and lighted softball and baseball fields. "The neighbors are going to be reluctant," Drake said, adding that if the homeowners survived adult softball there they would be able to live with the skaters.

Local skaters don't want another summer to pass without a skatepark. Danville budgeted the money, $50,000, last year, but City Commissioners haven't agreed on a location. Commissioners agreed to talk about the site today during budget discussion but weren't able to give any news to a dozen youths who came to speak at Monday's meeting. They waited through more than an hour-long zoning discussion before being given a chance to talk. "I just wanted to see something before summer," said Dillion Sirimongkhon.