Council Eyes Fix For Skate Park

Township Council members said they want to work with a group of skateboarders in order to bring the currently closed skate park up to code and get it open.

Township Councilman James Wendell said he would work with local skateboarders and the township on raising money and soliciting donations from area contractors to repair the park, which was closed in July after it was determined to be unsafe for use by the municipal Joint Insurance Fund.

JIF’s report indicated that each apparatus inspected appeared to be in extremely poor condition, with surface pieces loose and cracked and screws poking through. In addition, the inspector found that the skaters at the time weren’t using safety equipment, users were riding BMX bicycles in it and that there were no rules and regulations posted (Township Administrator James White said the rules and regulations are frequently vandalized and have ended up in the nearby lake and woods several times).

“I’m not a fan of expending any taxpayer money on something like this,” said Wendell. “I think we can go further and get donations and what have you if these boys say they can solicit people and find the money and find what’s necessary, then I think we should push it back on them. They’re the ones who have come here three meetings in a row and I think we should put some responsibility on them.”

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After asking Mayor David Stahl and the township to prepare a long range maintenance plan for all township parks and playgrounds, the council agreed Monday to ask White to determine what would need to be done in order to allow the volunteers to fix the park. Licensed contractors, supervisors and inspectors would all need to be involved in order to satisfy JIF standards, said White.

The council’s efforts to repair the park is what they are calling a short-term fix. A long-term fix could come in the form of an entirely new park, possibly built at Heavenly Farms.  Mayor Stahl said the current location on Dunhams Corner Road is problematic and that Heavenly Farms is becoming a center of athletics for the town.

“It’s not that visible to people,” Mayor Stahl said about the park’s current location. “We know that, through no fault of anybody, it’s just not prone to being easily monitored. I suggest we at least look at moving it to Heavenly Farms. It’s a place that’s obviously becoming the sports center of East Brunswick and we have plenty of room. It’s an area that would be easily seen by other people so comes more self policing than it is now.”

While the idea appealed to some council members, Wendell and others agreed that trying to fix the current park enough to satisy JIF inspectors should be a priority, since skaters would like to continue to use the facility.

“I’m more concerned about, right now, maybe, looking into a fix for this skate park that’s going to get it open in next six weeks, eight weeks,” said Wendell. “Not that I disagree with potentially moving it and the location probably is not he greatest in the world, I just look, from a greater perspective, that these kids came to us and indicated there was a problem, and from that all we showed them was yes, there is a problem, let’s close it.”

Mayor Stahl said the township would have to be extraordinarily careful in planning the park with volunteer help, and that having volunteers working on the skate park is much different than other service projects, like those done by Boy Scouts.

“The projects Boy Scouts do, and each and every one is a valuable addition, nonetheless are passive structures… by its nature a skate park is inherently dangerous. I’m not averse to looking at your suggestions. I’m just saying that we are going to be incredibly careful to make sure at end of day we don’t subject taxpayers to unnecessary exposure from a liability standpoint.”

While White would not release the long range park plan, he said that it mapped out what needed to be done to repair and upgrade all the township facilities. The overall price tag came in at $1.4 million, but the plan included many short-term fixes for much less.

“Obviously, it’s not going to be done tomorrow, or done in January, but that’s the long term needs,” said White. “We have a number of parks and playgrounds, and it goes anywhere from some short term fixes and some longer term fixes, with obviously longer the longer term fixes being  more expensive than shorter terms. The reason we did it is so when making a decision, you’re not making a decision in a vacuum.”

Tony Riccobono, a Republican candidate for Township Council, criticized the state of the parks and blamed Mayor Stahl for not doing more.

 “There’s no reason for our parks to be in this state of disrepair. $1.4 million is a lot of money and while (Mike Reissner manager of the Department of Recreation, Parks and Community Services) might be doing his job, somebody isn’t doing something, because $1.4 million doesn’t happen over just a few months. This has to be years of abuse and things haven’t been repaired, and money has to be put aside for repairs to parks and its unfortunate the mayor didn’t do this,” he said.

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