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A new skateboard park is going to be built in Northville, in part to honor the memory of a skateboarder who was killed while skateboarding in 2020.

https://www.hometownlife.com/story/news ... 146155007/

It has some honorable goals, like:

• Giving skateboarders a safe place to skate.

• Helping the parents of the dead skateboarder cope with their grief.

But I have a hard time getting past the fact that the 20-year-old kid who is getting memorialized did something incredibly stupid. He got killed at about midnight skating on a narrow two-lane road with no lighting that is particularly dark because of overhanging trees (Sheldon between Five and Six Mile Roads). Is it reasonable to talk about that, or should we just take the attitude that the kid paid for his mistake, and leave it at that?

I don't have a problem with the park being 'launched in his memory' as the story states, but I do have a serious problem with him being forever and officially memorialized. He is not one of the people that stormed the cockpit of Flight 93 on 9/11 and saved a lot of lives on the ground. He's not a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient from the area. He's someone that was doing something dumb and paid the ultimate price for it.

I'm not clear if the memorial is happening, though. If his family or supporters want to put a bench in with his name on it, great.

We are busy tearing down statues and memorials from a hundred or more years ago if someone on a witch hunt finds a scrap of information on a situation or practice that was acceptable then, but contrary to what is popular thought today. Some literally try to erase the memory of such historical parties. If indeed such memorization is planned, before this party is canonized and borne on a stallion to Valhalla, perhaps every scrap of his life should be analyzed with equal granularity.

Last, I bicycle a LOT, often traveling to distant locations to ride. I see a lot of skate parks in towns and near trail heads. I rarely.....almost never....see them in use. I admire the skills required to skate and as such always look for an opportunity to watch, but they are typically always vacant. Based purely on my experiencing their disuse, I don't think they are good use of public funds.

Plate Cap wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 26, 2023 2:04 pm

Last, I bicycle a LOT, often traveling to distant locations to ride. I see a lot of skate parks in towns and near trail heads. I rarely.....almost never....see them in use. I admire the skills required to skate and as such always look for an opportunity to watch, but they are typically always vacant. Based purely on my experiencing their disuse, I don't think they are good use of public funds.

FWIW, the fairly new skatepark located next to the Sterling Heights Public Library is almost always in use by someone whenever I drive past;
whether a few, several, or just one.

As far as the appropriateness of dedicating the Northville park to the fallen young man, I have no problem if that's what the community and local officials deem it to be. Without knowing anything else about the incident, it may serve as a reminder of why the park was built in the first place -- as a venue to safely participate in the activity.