Summerland skate park

[Tootsie]

How about we just put taxpayers money to good use, once and for all, and get a couple of these machines. Then there might be more money available for skateparks, community pools, etc.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuJ3NDq4AlA

[spooker]

How about we just put taxpayers money to good use, once and for all, and get a couple of these machines. Then there might be more money available for skateparks, community pools, etc.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuJ3NDq4AlA

Nice idea if/when they are available ... will be interesting to see if they will be more than vapourware and then what the price is

[OllyV]

Can you provide some numbers of expected users of this 600k investment? Hundred.....maybe. Do the math on the per capital expense and then tell us there would not have been a better use of funds for youth engagement that would be more inclusive than skateboarders.

...and get off my lawn d*mn it!

Have you seen the skate parks In Penticton and Peachland in the summer months? Always kids there.

You act like 600k is a massive amount of money these days. That barely buys a decent house in this town. If you're going to suggest doing the math you should start by doing it yourself.

Abraham is right. However, this community needs to go further to attract families. We need more for the young folks to do. Hopefully this investment is just the beginning.

This town's been investing in the dying for so long it has forgotten to look to the future and invest in the living. One day, not to long from now, all those minging NIMBY'S will have shuffled off this mortal coil and what will Summerland be let with? A bunch of placards from all the projects they protested rotting in the landfill.

[Poindexter]

Other than being a whole lot cheaper to build and maintain, skateparks are no different than public pools or hockey rinks.

[twobits]

Other than being a whole lot cheaper to build and maintain, skateparks are no different than public pools or hockey rinks.

Don't disagree with that. The only flaw to it is that even a 600k outdoor pool would be utilized by far more people across all age groups than a skate park.
Reality is a 600k outdoor swimming pool would be an effin nice pool. And I am not suggesting a pool as something that should have been done but just a reference point.
To me a skate park is about as stupid as buying a 600k painting to hang in City Hall.

[abraham]

*removed*

[OllyV]

*removed*

[OllyV]

Reality is a 600k outdoor swimming pool would be an effin nice pool.

*removed*

Either way, you are delusional if you think 600k would buy such a spectacular public pool.
You obviously know very little about construction and even less about public pools.

To me a skate park is about as stupid as buying a 600k painting to hang in City Hall.

All we can do is thank god no one is asking you if that is how well your critical thinking works.

[twobits]

Either way, you are delusional if you think 600k would buy such a spectacular public pool.
You obviously know very little about construction and even less about public pools.

I didn't say spectacular.....I said 600k would build an efin nice seasonal pool. And for your reference, being in construction all of my working career, I have built several dozen pretty nice pools and know what they cost. How many have you installed?
But this is moot. I don't think Summerland should build a pool with 600k any more than I think they should build a 600k skate park.
I think one of my biggest objections to this waste of funds is that skate parks are an unsupervised magnet for bullies and teen drug dealers. I have raised four kids and know too well what goes on around skate parks. Lived it....have you? If you think it's a church going family picnic out with the kids, you are delusional. Skate Parks become "turf" Olly.....and you do not want your kids there.

[rekka]

Most skateparks are far from dens of iniquity. They are places where kids of all ages (I'm 47 and use one every week) can ride bikes, boards, blades and scooters.
The users don't have to have the latest kit as long as it rolls, you year about the kids who's cant afford to send them to hockey or whatever every week. You don't get crazy sports parents yelling at them to try harder, no judges, referees, winners and losers. Just your buddies celebrating with you when you learn something new and looking out for each other. When I moved to BC from Europe, a decent skatepark was a vital factor in where I chose to live. The big Penticton park, wasn't even built yet, but I knew it was coming. Fifteen years later and I'm still here earning money and paying taxes into the local economy.
I'll visit Summerland skatepark when its built. I might buy a pop, or some gas or a burger while I'm in town too. Vacationing families will drop their kids off for a couple of hours while they are on the beach. You'll see that nothing bad will come of it.
Think about the people getting some fesh air, excersice, striving to learn a trick, not for a trophy or a championship, just because its fun, while you are in front of a screen bitching about potholes.

[OllyV]

I didn't say spectacular.....I said 600k would build an efin nice seasonal pool. And for your reference, being in construction all of my working career, I have built several dozen pretty nice pools and know what they cost. How many have you installed?
But this is moot. I don't think Summerland should build a pool with 600k any more than I think they should build a 600k skate park.
I think one of my biggest objections to this waste of funds is that skate parks are an unsupervised magnet for bullies and teen drug dealers. I have raised four kids and know too well what goes on around skate parks. Lived it....have you? If you think it's a church going family picnic out with the kids, you are delusional. Skate Parks become "turf" Olly.....and you do not want your kids there.

This can't be for real. This one of the most entertaining posts I have ever seen.

Where to start? Yes, I have raised four kids. I know what goes on in a skate park. I used to skate when I was younger (and thinner) so I also know first hand.

I also have experience with public pool design so I do know what is involved there. It isn't the same as "installing" a residential pool btw.

But all that aside and on to the guts of your post. Fear mongering nonsense.

You sound like you gleaned everything you know from Disney movies about "bad kids" or after school specials about the dangers of joining a gang.

You ain't going to see it in the news but the 411 in the hood is that the Summerland chapters of the bloods and the crips are staking out the future skate park as prime "turf". I have CI's that have let me know that the local chapter of the Hells Angels is also interested in that prime real estate as well. A turf war's a brewing.

Gangs of roving thugs are always looking for high profile, wide open spots on the busiest intersection in town a block from the RCMP detachment to do their business.

I mean just look at the local skateparks I mentioned before in Penticton and Peachland. I know it looks like a bunch of 12 to 15 year olds on skateboards and scooters but we all know better. That's just a cover. Each of them is a made gang member plying their trade staking out their own banks to distribute meth, hookers and take bets on the ponies.

Hey, I don't need to tell you, you've "lived it". Like an embedded war correspondent you know how the streets of Summerland will be running with blood if a park is installed in that school yard by the cop shop and across the street from the other park that attracts kids. You said it best, that location will be a magnet for crime. I mean we already know about the robust drug trade and prostitution ring that has followed the soccer games that are played there in the spring. I mean it seems like the skate park will be a safe place for the siblings of the soccer players to hang out during the games but luckily we have keen observers like yourself to see through the lies to the truth of the matter.

And the park across the road at the middle school. How many shootings were there this year alone? Don't let those delinquents on monkey bars and swings fool you. It is really a violent cesspool of hate and crime.

Why tempt fate with those nazi's of the street... skaters! They have been vilified since I was a kid, why stop now.

OR, it could just be safe place for our kids to play that will be highly visible and easily monitored just as the park across the road is now.

One of those two options.

[OllyV]

Most skateparks are far from dens of iniquity. They are places where kids of all ages (I'm 47 and use one every week) can ride bikes, boards, blades and scooters.
The users don't have to have the latest kit as long as it rolls, you year about the kids who's cant afford to send them to hockey or whatever every week. You don't get crazy sports parents yelling at them to try harder, no judges, referees, winners and losers. Just your buddies celebrating with you when you learn something new and looking out for each other. When I moved to BC from Europe, a decent skatepark was a vital factor in where I chose to live. The big Penticton park, wasn't even built yet, but I knew it was coming. Fifteen years later and I'm still here earning money and paying taxes into the local economy.
I'll visit Summerland skatepark when its built. I might buy a pop, or some gas or a burger while I'm in town too. Vacationing families will drop their kids off for a couple of hours while they are on the beach. You'll see that nothing bad will come of it.
Think about the people getting some fesh air, excersice, striving to learn a trick, not for a trophy or a championship, just because its fun, while you are in front of a screen bitching about potholes.

Thank you for a thoughtful, reasonable, level headed and experience based post about the reality of what this park means to the community.

It is refreshing. Yours is an approach not often displayed in discussions about development in Summerland.

[southy]

Ollyv .. You forgot to mention summerland's nastious gang of all .. THE BAD GRANNIES!! When one looks at Summerland's demographic numbers - it does seem like a large investment for approximately 1000 kids / 0-15. My son used pentictons skate park and I can tell you it was never really busy and it was usually the same kids.

[rekka]

When I was a kid in England, a "granny" tried to push her walking stick through the spokes of my BMX because I was cycling on the waterfront. Now there is a bike lane and a skatepark there. The world changes. Sometimes for the better. People should be happy that there is a central, visible, safe place that their kids can go for free to entertain themselves.
Funny how the people who have real life experiences of skatepark culture are the ones with the open minds and level headed points of view.

[OllyV]

Ollyv .. You forgot to mention summerland's nastious gang of all .. THE BAD GRANNIES!! When one looks at Summerland's demographic numbers - it does seem like a large investment for approximately 1000 kids / 0-15. My son used pentictons skate park and I can tell you it was never really busy and it was usually the same kids.

Kind of like the proportion of a community that uses a hockey arena but no one ever resists one of those.

That demographic imbalance is exactly what we need to change for the long term success of our community. Building a community better suited to the young families that are required to support that aging population is going to be critical if Summerland hopes to continue well into the future.

That is exactly why this kind of investment is a critical part of that long term strategy. However, it is only a part.
It is going to take a significant shift in current thinking if this town is to survive the death of the baby boomers.

And, all kidding aside, "the Bad (and bored) Grannies" are actually a much worse threat to Summerland than any skate park.