Today I went to the public meeting held by the Hillsborough County staff concerning possible locations for the new Northwest Skateboard Park.

A little background on the prospective project:

The possible skate park includes the construction of a 10,000 square-foot outdoor concrete park. The cost for the design and construction is about $500,000 and will be paid through Parks and Impact Fees.

Now for the opinion side of this particularly interesting public meeting...

The roads on West Hillsborough leading to Alonso High School, where the public meeting was held, had already convinced me this side of town knew nothing about construction, but I gave the county officers and the Director of Parks, Mark Thorn, the benefit of a doubt.

I walked into a cafeteria filled with young high school kids who wore tight jeans and clunky sneakers. They all sat intelligently as they waited for the moment when they would get to voice their opinions.

Thorn began to explain his concerns with the fact that the City of St. Pete owned the prospective skate park property and the trouble the community would face with securing the area.
He said he didn't want to ask them to sell the land because he knew the answer would be no. From that moment on, he somehow managed to slip his personal opinion of St. Pete into the agenda...

He began a small rant about how St. Pete doesn't care about the voters and has no loyalty. He went on to talk about the city being more concerned with the highest and best use of the land, which seemed to not be turning the prospective land into a skateboarding meeting ground.

As for the media, if a man wearing a fedora with one hand fumbling through his phone and the other on the tripod of a small camera spinning aimlessly around the room counts, then the media was present.

A parent raised his hand and asked for the link to where the map of the prospective park could be found. Thorn, who admitted his incompetence to answer any question pertaining to technology, simply said he didn't know. Another man from the back told him he could take one of the big maps spread across the oval lunch tables. I got the feeling this was in an effort to silence the parent who exposed the county officers lack of proper preparation.

I looked across the room as the shaggy haired boys who began to get restless with their skateboards in their laps.

All they wanted to do was skateboard.

After another parent asked if the kids would be involved in the design of the new park, I took immediate interest to the attention these officials gave to these young boys. They listened to a few of their ideas and seemed to be pleased. Thorn asked all of the boys to fill out a form if interested in having a say in the design of the park. They all flooded over to the table I stood by and the smell of sweaty kids almost made me forget where I was, but I managed to get out before the crowd became overwhelming.

As I walked down the hallway of the high school that was better known as "Home of the Ravens," I realized the need for a skateboard park as the rails and stairways turned into a skating jungle gym. I felt like a tourist out of my element but laughed to myself as I felt for these kids, and found myself wanting them to get their park.

Band students walked around but tonight the talented musicians weren't the stars, it was the sweaty, foul-mouthed skateboarding teenagers who came out to support the efforts of officials to give them a skate park.

Even kids take part in issues these days and it's good to know they have that option, no matter how young or careless they may seem at times. In all, it was a casual meeting with outbursts and laughs, almost a family setting. I drove past a group of parents waiting for a bus to take them further into the country end of Hillsborough. Regardless of the lack of decent roads, what counted tonight was the effort being made, and those who were the main focus of this public meeting-the skateboarders.