The Kid’s Aren’t Alright

The skate park at Scalzi Park is the one of the few modern facilities in Stamford’s otherwise archaic park system. The park has received national attention and is considered by many to be the premiere skate park on the east coast.

I am not a skater, but I enjoy taking a break when running through the park to watch people perform some tricks. My buddy and I brought his long board down once to try it out before we thought better of it and instead pushed our lame asses around the Wright Tech parking lot. It was also an interesting experience watching the park be built. A motley crew of tatted workers dug dirt, laid concrete and exchanged early rides to skaters who bribed them with cases of beer. The crew even extended the park at no extra cost after running ahead of schedule.

Credit for the park really belongs to both a handful forward thinking individuals in the city government and the grassroots support of skaters young and old who pushed for years to get the park completed. In the end they produced a free 10,000 square feet concrete park, designed by a nationally recognized skate park designer, totalling $310,000 on the city dime, with minimum rules and restrictions. The park is truly a “how-to” in anyone looking to push their goals through local bureaucracy.

Opposition for the park though was and remains high. The park was under construction during the contentious period of property re-evaluation, tax increases, and discontinuation of some popular, albeit unessential services, like back yard trash pickup. $310,000 of empty concrete swimming pools became the symbol of government waste and mismanagement to every local set to pay higher taxes on their long undervalued McMansions who were now burdened the momentous chore of wheeling their trash to the curb once a week.

Opposition from within the city government is also still strong. Approval by the board of Reps passed by one vote and there has been a chorus calling to water down the concept of a free, unrestricted skate park ever since. “Pad nannies”, fees and parking restrictions are all masks for what I suspect is their ultimate wish, taking a jack hammer to what they dub a "monstrosity in cement".

Cut to now, where the park has been shut down for the winter. Kids have going at the fence harder than Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, hopping, cutting and tunneling under the fence for the chance to skate among the piles of frozen autumn & winter shit. The city has shut the park down until spring because no insurance carrier will provide a policy for the winter months. What the kids don’t understand is that the first one to bring home a melon cracked open on pool coping to mommy and daddy could be bringing a lawsuit against the city at a time when they are unprotected by insurance. Stamford has already been sued for a broken arm during the summer. One major claim can make it pretty easy in the eyes of the city to shut the park down permanently rather than face continued liability.

Patience children, or you could be coming back to an entirely different park in the spring...