ATHOL – Local officials plan to meet to draft a response to residents’ concerns over a proposed skate park at Silver Lake Park.
Open Space and Recreation Review Commission (OSRRC) members Raenette Kramer and David Small, skate park proponent Stephen Paige, and Planning and Development Director Eric Smith will work up a response to Lincoln Avenue residents who voiced opposition to the skate park in their neighborhood during the Oct. 6 meeting of the Select Board.
Issues raised included trash, noise, discarded needles, and loss of the site as a location for young people to organize pickup soccer or baseball games. Smart and Kraemer, who often visit Silver Lake Park, said they had never run across discarded hypodermic needles.
Commission member Mitch Grosky, appearing virtually, told the panel it was his belief that the Select Board, on which he also serves, heard only from opponents of the skate park due to a misunderstanding.
“The only people who had signed up to speak were of the negative persuasion,” he said at the commission’s meeting on Oct. 27. “In couple of cases, they agree that a skate park is a good idea, but not in their neighborhood.”
Grosky noted that, other than Paige, the only person to support the idea was Miami, Florida, resident Jonathan Strauss, who has built several skate parks.
Grosky said he had a couple of concerns following the Select Board meeting.
“Afterward, I saw many people on Facebook indicate they were not allowed to speak, and that was curious because of the fact that our administrative assistant had announced at least twice that anyone who wanted to speak had to sign up,” he said. “I noticed there were a lot of young people present who I assumed would be speaking, but none of them did.”
Grosky said maybe some of the park supporters had not been aware of the announcement regarding sign-ups or simply chose not to speak.
“This was somewhat misreading the sentiments of the town, because only those who came to criticize what hadn’t even been a decision yet were the only ones heard that night,” he said.
“I admit that I didn’t know that there was a list,” said Paige. “If there was a list, I missed the announcement, so I never told anybody. I actually had a lot of people show up to speak positively, but nobody knew about the sign-up sheet because I didn’t know about the sign-up sheet.”
Grosky said any resident can speak on any topic when the chair of the Select Board opens the meeting to public comment.
“You don’t have to wait for an item on the agenda,” he said.
Grosky said the board should look at the objections carefully and try, to the extent possible, to answer concerns raised by the neighbors.
Smith pointed out that his office had received 108 responses to a community survey seeking input on the Open Space and Recreation Plan currently being put together.
“The number one priority of those who responded was a skate park,” he said. “It wasn’t location-specific but people did say it was something that’s needed.”
Some members of the OSRRC suggested Hillside Terrace, near the town’s filtration plant, as well as what’s known as the Flagg property located on the banks of the Millers River and adjacent to the former site of the Cass Toy Company, which is now a brownfield site.
Smith said that the Flagg property is privately owned and efforts to speak to the owners have not been successful.
Lincoln Park had been endorsed by the OSRRC as the preferred site for the skate park. Paige suggested that, at some point in the future, he, Smith and the two commission members could meet with some of the neighbors in hopes of addressing their concerns.