Authored by: spinoza on Monday, February 09 2009 @ 07:15 PM GMT+4

Not sure if I really get the assignment, but giving it a shot, mostly because I'm tired of carrying around so much disappointment.

Regarding the skatepark: I'm starting to feel like Sisyphus. He's the guy who as soon as he completes pushing the rock to the top of the little hill, has the rock roll down the other side. There are many other causes I care about, and it's demoralizing to feel like a broken record here. I stick with this because it's an important group- our youth, especially those that want to be active in a non-team way- these kids deserve representation. Chris made many great suggestions, and I failed to report that each and every one of them has been tried, and denied. School administrators don't want skating on their grounds. It seems they don't fully grasp that kids are getting criminal records for engaging in a healthy activity. At least that's what the evidence suggests to me. And as this campaign has dragged on- the better part of a decade- with one red herring after the other held out, then tugged away, it also seems that the powers that be in the Rec Department and Selectboard don't care enough to further this cause on their own.

For many years, I've harbored a vision that skateboarding could gain acceptance, and become a viable form of transportation, not unlike bicycling. My friends have urged me to persevere, but knowing what I know after attending all these meetings, and reading comments like Spud Hill's- saying skaters should just volunteer their time to build senior housing for fun and exercise, it's time for me to seek some repose. If this is truly important to the town, you all know what to do.

For a concrete suggestion- if the skate park can't go in the town park, can I hear again what is wrong with the Crowell Lot?

Authored by: chrishh on Tuesday, February 10 2009 @ 05:13 PM GMT+4

I have a better idea. Have the kids do some work to earn the money to build their park... then, give them the tools and adult guidance so they can build the park. Instead of handing them a skate park. Let's face it - skateboarding is NOT a mode of transportation - it's "playing". And sometimes rudely and with no consideration for people around them. And - IT'S BOYS.

I've had it with all this kids come first stuff. It's BS.

oh - excuse me - is that a loaded word?

no one here should be telling and/or censoring what people write about and what they write - in the "guise" of "rules".

Not what brrrrattttleboro is about.

Authored by: chrishh on Tuesday, February 10 2009 @ 05:17 PM GMT+4

How about we build them a park incorporated into a Y that everyone can use? Girls. Adults. We can have the little boys work for free helping to build it. Teach them skills and achievement in one nice big effort. Handouts produce entitled attitudes. Not on my tax dollars thanks.

Authored by: chrishh on Tuesday, February 10 2009 @ 05:29 PM GMT+4

The boys already have enough aren't i special and i deserve everything but don't have to do anything for it attitude. Just being a boy makes me deserving. Even if i'm rude, lazy and wearing my pants at my knees.

Sorry - thanks anyway.

Anyone have any tax dollar ideas of what we can build for the girls?

How about boys with better and less entitled attitudes? Oh - that would nice. A REAL gift.

Sorry - so psst off with this constant coming up with how to spend my money. Next someone will want an arts and music center built onto the front of the high school for 8M.

Half the people in this town shouldn't have moved here. They wanted to drag their CT and NY lives and lifestyles up to Vermont with them but they wouldn't fit in the truck. Well - get on 91 and go visit it. Vermont is not interested in becoming where you came from.


feel free to boot me off this site if i offend anyone. i've had my intelligence offended plenty here myself.

taxpayer funded skateboard parks...

how about a law that says pull up your pants first? and if you're over 27 - turn the cap around and grow up.

so sorry. i have too much fun here. should be illegal.

Authored by: pjmelton on Tuesday, February 10 2009 @ 05:55 PM GMT+4

I can see why you're so upset, chrishh. Clearly you are a model of civilized behavior. If everyone tried as hard as you do, just think what kind of society we would live in.

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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR

Authored by: chrishh on Thursday, February 12 2009 @ 11:20 AM GMT+4

As a matter of fact I am a model citizen. I grew up respectful of others, I went to school and excelled in grades, I didn't talk back or swear in public or wear my clothes half off - and my all that with parents who were barely around. Doesn't take a brain to know what's what. Or to ride a skateboard. Where are the dads of all these boys? How about some adult supervision? Instead of town supervision? As Joseph Campbell said - they have no proper initiation by adult men - or positive modeling somewhere along the line. Half the kids downtown on skateboards are way too old to be playing and doing nothing all day. These aren't children. They are young adults with nothing be asked of them.

I say again - stop the taxpayer handouts and stop the entitled attitudes.

Build strong boys with higher expectations of themselves. Start by expecting more of them.

Oh - sorry if I'm being too hard on them... the little - adults.

What makes you the censor mj? Paying 6k+ in taxes to live in Brattleboro? I am - and many pay even more. Now they want to tax your groceries and institute a town tax - which they will continue to raise rather than do their jobs of controlling spending and "budgeting". All we have currently on this board are friends in the pockets. We subsidize everything on tiny Main Street. Which isn't so special. It's got to stop. We need people in Town office who are qualified to CONTROL the leaks. This town thinks it's a big city. Take another look.


I say again - all gown men need to turn their baseball caps around, pull up their pants and grow up. Set a good example. It's what's missing for many of these little men - they are NOT boys. They are going on twenty half of them. They are seriously abandoned. They need school and models - not skate parks that perpetuate the notion they're children.



Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

Authored by: pjmelton on Thursday, February 12 2009 @ 12:25 PM GMT+4

I am sure that reasonable people can take issue with each other's tone without accusing one another of "censorship." I think your tone is kind of over the top, and I'm allowed to mention that without breaking a single Constitutional provision. Just as you're allowed to keep ranting. Funny how that works, isn't it? We all get to speak our minds, and disagreeing is not "censorship."

What is the difference, in your mind, between a skate park and a ball field, swimming pool, skating rink, ski slope, etc.?

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"Economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings." -- FDR

Authored by: spinoza on Tuesday, February 10 2009 @ 10:42 PM GMT+4

Chrisshhh dude, I so agree with you on so many points, and so does the power structure of the town, if you go by $'s spent over the years.

Fact is, you ride a popsicle stick and smith-grind a bench while someone's waiting for the bus, you're a dodo. One with sick skills; but not really ready to see the big picture.

Someone who did see the bigger view was former Town Manager/Police Chief Bruce Campbell. He saw, absent a place to go, kids shouldn't be the ones to pay for the merchants’ grievances. He led the effort to have a few ramps built inside a renovated garage in what was at the time the Brattleboro Teen Center.

Captain Wrinn seems to get it too. Skaters may be annoying but they are not in a real sense, lawbreakers. This conundrum puts both officers and skaters in a tight spot. For skateboarding to be a criminal act says something sad and fearful about us as a people. There is no public place to go. I don't want my son, or anyone's child, to tangle with the law for a spurious purpose.

So, beyond an adolescent testosterone pit, what makes this idea worth doing? For one, among the millions, skateboards (and skateboarders) come in all shapes and sizes. There are longboarders now crossing continents, and downhillers able to handle the likes of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia. And more and more, just like in snowboarding, girls and adults are joining the scene. In places where minds have been expanded a bit, traffic tensions still exist, but there is not only tolerance, but recognition that a robust active lifestyle for as many people as possible is one of the most worthy things one can spend money on.

I'm psssst tooo chrishhh, that the town is uncreativity dragging it's heels on this, and sorry that these kids can't articulate yet what they need, much less fend for themselves in as savage a socio-economic environment as we are in. But I would advocate for swings, and teeter-totters, and slides too, if none existed. And wouldn't expect kids to run their own fund drive to make it happen. Because I think -whatever one's place of origin- to be guardians of vitality and growth is the work of a mature society.

Authored by: chrishh on Thursday, February 12 2009 @ 11:27 AM GMT+4

You perpetuate the idea that these kids need to play - to be handed something. How about work for it? How about half of them aren't babies/children/boys?

They would learn much more if they were required to earn it.

Learn "earn". Get it. Built into the word. Teach them that.

Pull up the pants - not in diapers anymore and no one wants to see their one in a trillion behind. Looks like all the others. Teach them that. All bums look alike. pun

Teach them that - if you don't take care of your teeth - you lose them.

If you don't learn how to work - you usually grow up and don't.


Handouts are debilitating. And usually go to the boys. That why some societies on this planet are doing much better than America. They EXPECT more.

It's all about the adults. Adult expectations, leadership and mentoring. Go do that. Take each one of them and teach them something. Work before play. Try it. Expect more. They will benefit from that. It's what will get them ahead and give them self esteem. Twenty year old skateboarder is not a baby. It's a neglected boy.

Authored by: cgrotke on Thursday, February 12 2009 @ 12:05 PM GMT+4

"Twenty year old skateboarder is not a baby. It's a neglected boy."

Or an high paid sports star with gold medals and lucrative advertising
contracts, handlers, and an agent. : )

Brattleboro spends lots of money on "recreation" of all sorts. Many
adults encourage their kids to participate, to learn essential work and
life skills - teamwork, cooperation, leadership, winning and losing,
etc.

Authored by: spoon on Thursday, February 12 2009 @ 01:15 PM GMT+4

If I could wave my magic wand I would have the town create one or two new positions for "community organizers." These would be the go to people when there was a worthy project to add something beneficial to the general welfare or life/vitality of the town. A skateboard park might be one such project. The organizer would have the skills, knowledge and access to bring together the right mix of leadership, money and labor to make something happen. Another example of a project might be the Whetstone Pathway.

So much does not happen that could happen mostly because we have, over many many decades, worked ourselves into a mindset that everything has to be paid for with other people's money (while those "other people" are siphoning our money for their projects) and then contracted out. Perhaps that is just one more characteristic of a society that has, or believes it has oodles of money. Why use one's own time and labor when you can get the time and labor of others? Why clean your own house when you can afford to pay someone else to do it? I imagine this is a natural human tendency.

Skateboarders are probably, among all groups, ideally suited.. young,active, vigorous, agile... to build their own skateboard park. They could probably even supply at least some of the money and perhaps scrounge some of the materials. What they need most is that experienced organizer to guide them into pulling it all together. It wouldn't be surprising if they also took better care of something they built and maintain themselves.

One of my concerns is the actual percent of kids skateboarding in relation to the cost of a park. Another concern is about whether or not skateboarding itself might be a passing fad. But I suppose an argument would be made that with a handy local park more kids would use it. It might also be a gathering place like inner city playgrounds. And it seems skateboards have been around long enough to be a least a little more than just a fad. On balance I support a park as long as I don't have to hear the noise.

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spoon agave