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Location, location, location
You will note in Mr. Varley’s council report on page 14 that, after many months and much brouhaha, Uxbridge Council has finally decided where they will put a new fire hall, should they ever decide they can afford one. And the decision, in the end, was made without much fanfare or dissent whatsoever. We suspect this is due to the fact that all other possible locations had far too many strikes against them, and the winning site, hard by the new roundabout at Hwy. 8 and Concession 6 (we were going to call it a corner, but it’s not really that any more, is it?), simply won a war of attrition. It was the best of a bad lot. We would not be surprised if it continues to be nothing but a sea of grass for many years to come (and not even an occasional par three, since the Rotarians reportedly love Little Sticks as the new site for their Million Dollar Hole in One). The station on Bascom Street will be with us for many moons yet, and that’s not really such a bad thing.
With the plague of NIMBYism that surfaces with every development proposal, be it grocery store, condo or playground, it shows considerable perseverance for a municipal council to actually push ahead and build anything nowadays. Our new skate park, scheduled for completion next summer, is a prime example. One of the original ideas was to build it next to the high school, where a high percentage of its potential users spend a high percentage of their lives. But the residents of Coral Creek weren’t keen on that, and finally the school board said they needed the land for expansion. Whew!
Elgin Park was suggested, about as far a cry from the sewage plant as you can get. Rumblings of unhappiness from the good folk of Wooden Sticks, and Council concurred. Elgin Park, many of them implied, was too isolated. Crime and other evil would undoubtedly flourish (the general populace, despite all evidence to the contrary, particularly in this town, seems to believe that skateboarders are a bad lot).
How about beside the arena? Quaker Village was leery; a splashpad was much more wholesome. How about Herrema Fields? This was the preferred option of the skatepark committee, but letters arrived by the boatload from the Barton Farmers. So the Final Solution was to exile the skateboarders to Kennedy Fields, blazing the way for all the other recreational developments which will ultimately land there. A safe distance from any protesting residents, and a great deal more isolated than Elgin Park or even the sewage plant.
The beauty of Adrian Giacca’s skatepark design was that it made skateboarding a spectator sport, something the whole community could enjoy. Well, the skateboarders may find their way to Kennedy House out of desperation, but no spectator will. Ostracism of our youth is a pretty high price to pay for location by elimination.
July 14, 2011
