Last fall, students from Auburn University, Auburn High School and their parents formed a group and started meeting in an effort to get Auburn a public skatepark. After several small meetings in the city meeting room behind Cheeburger Cheeburger, the group rounded up all of the skateboarders, BMX bikers and rollerbladers in Auburn and stated their case in front of the city council.
It seemed as if nothing happened, but developer Greg Darden was at that city council meeting, and he noted the large turnout. Since then, he's been working with skatepark development groups in California, and he showed some plans to the skatepark group last week. He's now looking for someone or a group of people who would be interested in running a for-profit skatepark in Auburn. The park would be situated next to a shopping complex where parents would shop and eat while their kids skate.
When Charles Duggan, Auburn's city manager, came to one of the meetings last year, he shared something with us that really bugged me, mostly because of the backwards logic being applied by the city when evaluating Auburn's need for a skatepark.
Duggan said the city puts out surveys every year asking citizens what kind of parks or amenities they would like, and there apparently were not that many votes for a skatepark.
Well who would have thought that a city that got rid of its skatepark by selling the ramps to a youth ministry, effectively cutting out use by anyone not in high school, would see a decline in skateboarding?
That's like draining the oceans, letting the wildlife decompose and then trying to get a head count on all the fish.
The conditions have just not been favorable for skating, skateboarding or biking to flourish, and while that may be exactly what some people want, it's not going anywhere.
When I moved here three years ago, I decided I would not be street skating in Auburn, for the most part. I like this campus too much to mess it up by sliding around on brand new handrails and planters.
While I will now skate stuff that's been beaten-up since my campus tour in February 2006 with a clean conscience, I quit for the better part of my freshman and sophomore years.
The surveys don't account for college students who, while sometimes only here for four years, quit doing these activities when they move here. For the past year and a half, I've been driving my friends and myself the 30 minutes to the concrete skatepark in Columbus, Ga.
Despite that park being free, Columbus still manages to get some of my money every time I go over there, whether it's through a tank of gas or some clothes at the mall.
It truly is an "if you build it, they will come" situation.
Darden saw this, and as thanks for that I'm just trying to put the word out to anyone interested in taking him up on his offer.
There will be another meeting of the skatepark group in the city meeting room, behind Cheeburger Cheeburger, September 22. All interested parties are welcome.
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