For quite some time, the George Preston skate park was a hub for creative minds to hang out and create intriguing pieces of art. Ever since George Preston signed a contract with Goodbye Graffiti, the park has been a bland mess of chipped grey paint and explicit vandalism. Kids will spray paint negative and inappropriate things, swear words, graffiti with next to no art skills, etc. It looks awful. If the George Preston skate park was a legal painting space, it would be covered in beautiful, creative art. Rather than being a blank wall waiting for kids to turn it into a spectacle of hate and vulgarity. I believe that legal permission to paint the skate park will make the George Preston Recreation Centre area as a whole become more of a community for young people looking for a place to belong. Not to mention that a percentage of the people who go there film videos of them riding skateboards and whatnot, having an artistic background will likely appeal to them more than chipped grey paint. Another point is that the only maintenance that gets done there is when the township changes garbage cans and when goodbye graffiti paints over vandalism. These prove that George Preston is willing to spend money on the skate park. Meanwhile, there is often broken glass all over the grass and sometimes the concrete areas. Bicycles constantly get flat tires here, making it a less desirable place to ride. George Preston sees this as acceptable, as they spend all this money on painting over graffiti. The skate park looks uglier than ever before. The chips in the paint even affect the skateboarders riding the bowls and quarter pipe. Their small wheels get caught in the cracks and it is a safety hazard. A safety hazard that would be avoided with a legal graffiti wall here, as new layers of paint would be put on often. With that being said, I Propose that George Preston and the Township of Langley cease their contract with Goodbye Graffiti, allowing the youth and adults alike to express themselves through art.

Here is a link to photos of what the skate park looked like before and after the Goodbye Graffiti contract. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VpahBNJBG4m8O7Ubud5XcZlRtS3LN1qX?usp=sharing