Saturday, September 6, 2008

Fight The Power!



And fight the power lifters. Charleston is home to one FREE skatepark and that park will be closed as of Monday, September 8 and is scheduled to reopen on Friday, September 19. During the closure the park will become home to the World's Strongest Man Competition. The events planned for Coonskin are the "overhead lift" and the "car lift" competitions.
If you have ever witnessed the "car lift" then you know that these STRONG men lift the cars and then drop them to the concrete. The smooth concrete of the park will be destroyed despite the fact that I was personally advised last week that the crete will be "resealed" after the competition. Resealing and restoration are two different things.
There are skaters who travel from bordering counties to ride the park because either their hometown has no park or as Marc says "Coonskin has the smoothest concrete in the world". Granted that the park consists of pre fabricated Skate Wave quarter pipes and ramps it is our HOME park and the smooth crete is perfect for flatland and freestyle.
Coonskin park has several tennis courts that could have been used for these events so why did city and county officials decide on the skatepark? In my opinion the skatepark should be preserved for skateboarding. I know that there are other places to skate in Charleston and Area 51 is an awesome indoor park but I refuse to pay money to do what I can do otherwise for FREE unless there is a foot of snow on the ground.
We will do our best to make our voices heard over the next few days. There are plenty of better locations that could have been chosen for this event and perhaps the county and city officials who made this poor decision will change their minds if enough skaters speak out.

1 comment:

Marc's Board Shop said...

Hey Jeff - You need to email this post to Danny Jones: danny.jones@cityofcharleston.org

He is supposed to be getting me the name of the person at the county responsibile for "donating" the park. I'll let you know as soon as I hear from him.