Upcoming meetings will help make
final site decision
A motion to place a skateboard park at the former highways yard in Rossland that passed only as a means of seeking money has spurred an upcoming public process.
When former Rossland mayor Les Carter attended a public meeting and saw that residents felt left out of the decision-making, he decided to offer his background in public conflict resolution by facilitating two meetings.
“I’m applying some of my expertise to get people to think through problems without jumping to conclusions and arguing,” he said. “We want to take it logistically, by first identifying the information that we need.”
Carter has invited locals to participate Tuesday in an open-minded roundtable discussion that will help identify key areas of concern before getting right into potential site locations at another meeting to come.
The Rossland Skateboard Park Association’s two preferred sites are the Centennial Park and the highways yard, a location that was designated for the future skate park only so the association could go after funding.
Unfortunately, this was initially seen as a motion passed without community consultation.
“That wasn’t communicated well. People thought they decided arbitrarily without input,” said Carter. “They did look at criteria then and looked at sites in a reasonable way. They came very close to having the answer.”
Carter also intends to get in touch with other communities with skate parks to ask pertinent questions like how they decided where to place the park? And if they could do it all again, what would they do different?
Technical evaluations will also be completed and made available before the second meeting, which hasn’t been scheduled yet.
Once this consultation process in complete, Carter will report to Rossland council, which will then make a final decision.
The first meeting will be Tuesday at 7:45 p.m. at the Miners Hall.
Residents are encouraged to get their hands on information prior to the meeting by contacting Carter at 362-5677 or via email at retrac01@telus.net
For more information on the Rossland Skateboard Park Association, visit www.skaterossland.ca