Skateboard bowl in park awaiting council approval
Neighbourhood group set to raise more than $100,000 for facility
Wading patiently through a sometimes slow-churning municipal bureaucracy is just accepted fact for a group of Windsor seniors who have made it their mission to not only save their beloved west-side park, but to keep improving it for the neighbourhood.
“Others might give up, but we’re old,” said Friends of Atkinson Park spokeswoman Jane Sparrow.
More than a year after the group first sought municipal approval to build a skateboard bowl at the park’s existing outdoor skateboard facility, city council will finally be asked Monday night to give the project a provisional go-ahead.
Monday’s vote is merely for approval-in-principle “pending a further report,” according to administration. But Sparrow is OK with that — council’s endorsement starts the fundraising effort, with Friends of Atkinson pledging to come up with the needed $100,000 to $120,000 construction cost themselves.
It was only recently that the city began installing the lights for a quarter-mile asphalt walkway that circles the park, using funds that Friends of Atkinson donated 3½ years ago.
Sparrow, whose group also funded the walkway, said those first lights aren’t hooked up yet but will be a much-welcomed safety feature for seniors who use the path for early-morning and earlyevening strolling.
Sparrow said she and her cohorts might be “older, mature ladies,” but the Friends of Atkinson Park — formed 17 years ago to fend off the first of more than one city hall effort to get rid of the park and its pool — has shown itself to be a politically feisty group not easily ignored.
“Once you reach 50, there’s really not a lot that can get you terribly upset,” Sparrow said of the waiting games the group’s members — average age in the 70s — appear not to mind playing with parks and recreation bureaucrats.
“I think what upsets them more is that we call regularly — about once a week,” said Sparrow.
After consulting with the neighbourhood, and after another previous long battle, the friends opened a skateboard pad with ramps, rails and jumps in 2005 after raising approximately $150,000 (a Trillium grant covered half the cost). Sparrow said the group used their “older-mature-ladies” spiel to get the contractor to slash about $30,000 off the final price tag. That same strategy of “finagling” for better deals worked again in 2010 when they purchased about $30,000 in surplus skateboard ramps and equipment from the Town of Leamington for $3,000.
As part of their deal with Leamington, the ladies had to agree to get the skateboard equipment out by a set date in the middle of winter, and Sparrow said they did that by bringing with them a group of skateboarders for the price of lunch.
Friends of Atkinson Park founder Marilyn Woodison died in February. As a big show of respect, young skateboarders followed her hearse from the funeral service to the crematorium.
Sparrow said there are donors already waiting in the wings for council’s approval. The goal is to have all the funds raised, and Essex County’s first full concrete bowl for skateboarders installed, in 2019.
Partially sunk into the ground, Sparrow said the bowl will target an older skateboarder crowd, perhaps even the parents of the kids who currently predominate the sport. Forest Glade Park has Windsor’s only other major outdoor skateboard facility.
“We’ve got guys now in their late 30s who bring their kids and they all skateboard,” said Sparrow, whose group has been working with the Essex County Skateboarding Association. “Younger guys want the ramps, older guys want the bowl so they can do different tricks.”
The Friends of Atkinson Park, which also paid for the rubberized base for a handicapable playground, had been subsidizing summer swim programs for children, but switched this year to “working to get seniors into the pool,” said Sparrow.
Last week, a memorial bench for Marilyn Woodison went in, and Sparrow said former city parks boss Phil Roberts is donating a tree to provide future shade. As per Woodison’s wishes, Sparrow said the tree will be adorned in the winter with donated hats, mitts and scarves for anyone in need of such warmth.
Things might appear to move slow at city hall, but Sparrow has nothing but kind words for Windsor’s parks and recreation staff, who have been “extremely kind to us ... we understand the amount of work they have to do.”
Tax receipts are available to those who donate towards the latest effort of the Friends of Atkinson Park. Sparrow said cheques can be made payable to “City of Windsor for Atkinson Skateboard Park.” Or email Jane Sparrow for more information at lindajsparrow@hotmail.com.
We’ve got guys now in their late 30s who bring their kids and they all skateboard.