Newmarket just opened an outdoor skate park that is being so well received that a skateboarder visiting her grandmother here in Aurora that has been in the sport for four years is looking forward to getting use out of the park.
Which begs the question doesn’t Aurora have a skateboard park?
Let’s check their website. Enter “skateboard” and we get 121 results but strangely enough no pinned link to the expensive infrastructure that was recently built:
Why?
What I recall is the council of the day (many of which are seeking re-election this fall, cough, cough Wendy Gaertner, Sandra Humfreys, Harold Kim, Tom Mrakas and Micheal Thompson) voted to cheap out and build a $.5 Million park against the advise of town staff.
Then when it fell apart because it was cheaply made they had to pay more than the full cost to have it removed and replaced.
Something, something, getting things re-done.
Perhaps this is why nine-year-old Ottawa skateboarder Freyja Michael isn’t using the Aurora park but the Newmarket one.
In the same piece we also learn that “skaters looking for an outdoor experience had to go elsewhere. Resident Stephen Plumley said his son is an avid skater, and they would travel to Richmond Hill or Barrie.”
Yup, Richmond Hill or even Barrie, but Aurora’s skatepark right next door doesn’t seem to be on the radar.
And here I thought Aurora fully engaged the town’s “youts” with their amazing citizen engagement tools like survey monkey and ultimately built the solution according to the found needs.
I thought the whole idea of adding a youth centre to the Aurora Family Leisure Centre was to turn it into a hub or hot-spot, but it instead it looks like it should be renamed the Aurora Family Leave Here Centre.
This is especially pathetic given that the town has been grossly preoccupied with sports over the past decade going as far as declaring itself “the most active community in Canada” and getting its ass handed to it, to more recently creating a Sports Tourism plan.
It is apparent that when the town’s own youth leave to go to a neighbouring facility the town needs a Sports Tourism plan…….so that it can redirect other interested skateboarders to Richmond Hill, Newmarket and Barrie.
That’s what people in the sport would call a face plant.
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