Hello everyone! Not much has changed since the last update. We will be returning to City Council again this eventing to RE-present this issue and keep it fresh in the minds of the City and Parks and Rec. We will also give them this letter from skate park builders, Grindline.

It has been a challenge to impress all of our points upon the non-skaters involved, but that is exactly why we keep reiterating our points to Parks and Rec and City Council. We feel somewhat understood but still very unsure of what "options" the City will come back to us with. Our goals for those options is that they all be concrete and none include working with American Ramp Company.

Parks and Rec knew we wanted a concrete park and NOT one made of steel ramps, as evidenced by the Capital Improvement Plan from a year ago when they outlined our exact perspective in remarkable detail. Whether it was to make things go more quickly, more cheaply or another excuse, they opted to recommend to City Council that we "repair" the old park which they also knew was NOT what the skate community wanted. The City understandably followed that recommendation. The City and Parks and Rec would have had much greater success in this process had they better included our voices and preferences, which again were known to them in detail at the time. Our perspective remains that if we have to raze the old park to the ground we might as well create something better than what was there because the funding is there and the will should be there out of respect for the funding and the skate community. 

We plan to show some of the concept designs we received from Artisan Skateparks at the meeting tonight during the public comment section of the meeting. We would love for you to tune in and watch! Here's the link:https://harrisonburg-va.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx

There's no way to know when exactly the public comment will be but it happens at the end and you can also see the agenda at the link above which may help you get an idea of when the public comment will happen. Thank you all so much!