By Greta Solsaa/VTDigger
As Killington celebrates the 50th anniversary of its recreation center, some residents are pushing to make a skate park a new permanent fixture of the town’s summer offerings.
The town crafted its recreation master plan to holistically determine how to best use its resources to serve residents in the future, Recreation Department Director Emily Hudson said.
The department’s first priority in the next three to five years is to upgrade the outdated pool house and replace the public pool, which has a “small, slow leak” the town has dealt with for years, Hudson said.
The pool issues “fueled this whole master plan project to start to look at what amenities we need to meet the needs of current programming and what would community members like to see.”
The proposal also included a long-term plan to build a multiuse field house for indoor tennis, pickleball, soccer and basketball, and maintenance.
But Tucker Zink, general manager for Darkside Snowboards shop, said he noticed a gap in the project: a skate park.
Killington could follow the lead of more populated towns, like Burlington and Waterbury, that have built skate parks in the last decade, Zink said. The town, with vast mountainous terrain, is known as a hub for skiers and snowboarding in winter, and biking, riding, hiking and skateboarding in the summer months, he said.
“The people that are here are here to recreate outdoors,” Zink said. “Skateboarding goes hand in hand with all that.”
The Darkside Snowboards shop has a mini ramp and other regularly used skateboarding features on the property, but “a true concrete facility is worlds beyond what we have here,” he said.
Zink created an online petition June 9 to raise awareness during the public comment period on the master plan in hopes that the recreation department would see a skate park as a priority for the Killington community. In just over two weeks the petition has garnered 330 signatures, with more than 100 people adding comments about the positive impact of a skate park for residents and visitors.
On June 16, Josh Swett commented: “The main reason I go to Sunday River and not Killington is because of a nearby skate park. I prefer to ride at Killington, but I have to weigh out the overall trip, which ideally includes skateboarding. The halfpipe at Darkside shop is great (one of the best), but it’s not enough.”
“What I’m doing is just trying to stir up support, to get it on their radar so that, as they revise their plans and move forward with a more finalized plan, they’ll include a skate park in it,” Zink said.
Zink said the closest skate parks to Killington are in Manchester, Ludlow and Bethel, as the Flipside skate park in Rutland shut down in 2020. The long distance to the facilities creates barriers for locals interested in skateboarding, especially for younger generations, he said.
Nick LaCoille, commented: “Having grown up around Rutland, going to Flipside was a huge part of my childhood and often considered a second home for myself and most. Seeing its doors close during Covid deeply hurt the skateboarding community in the Rutland/Killington area. You have an opportunity to give kids a place to be themselves, make friends for life and practice one of the best and inclusive sports on the planet. Please bring a skatepark to Killington!!! From traveling up and down the East Coast to the West Coast, skateboarding is growing unbelievably everywhere in the world. Please be a apart of the solution and give the kids another place they can also call home for years to come.”
Killington’s year-round population is now approximately 1,400. The Covid-19 pandemic brought an influx of people moving to the town, including families with children that needed more opportunities for outdoor activities, Zink said.
Seeing the need for skateboarding opportunities in the community, Zink said Darkside Snowboards has offered a summer skateboarding camp every summer since 2017, and participation has grown steadily over time.
“It’s obvious that people want this type of programming,” Zink said. “It’s suddenly something people want to do. It’s just a matter of having a place to do it.”
Hudson said the Recreation Department began crafting the master plan last fall in collaboration with a consultant, town planners and the Recreation and Planning Commission, and presented it to the public on April 1.
After receiving little public feedback since April, Hudson said she got the petition this week along with a dozen emails from residents requesting a skate park and a pump track for scooters and bike motocross riders.
The current iteration of the plan is a “placeholder” that can change with public input, and the department plans to share the skate park feedback with the consultant, Hudson said.
Hudson said the town is welcoming ideas during the public comment period, but that it will likely take a decade or more to fund and fully build out the new facilities besides the pool and pool house. She said the department does not want recreation facilities to create “an additional burden” on the town’s taxpayers.
Zink said facilities for soccer or baseball require long-term planning for upkeep and programming, but a skate park will offer ongoing opportunities for residents while not placing a heavy burden on the town.
“One good thing about a skate park is that once it’s built, it doesn’t take much maintenance, and anyone can just show up and do it on their own,” he said. “It’s something that’s beneficial to pretty much everybody.”
Eric Gorman concurred, commenting on the petition June 14, writing: “I believe that skateparks are a high-yield investment for the enrichment and benefit of the community and its residents. There may be a considerable upfront cost, but they last for decades, require minimal maintenance, and provide round-the-clock opportunity for exercise, creative self-expression, community building, and social interaction. I believe it’s very important to have skate parks in our communities, because it bridges the divide between gender, sex, generation, and cultural backgrounds in a way that truly brings people of all walks of life together. There should be no question of whether or not this skatepark is put in, the only question that should be asked is why there isn’t one already.”
To sign the petition visit: ipetitions.com/petition/include-a-skateboard-park-in-killington-rec-master.
