Youth, 10, lobbies town for skate park

Medfield closed original facility

Jack Bourdon, 10, wants Medfield to build a new skateboard park, and has collected 141 signatures to support his effort.

Ten-year-old Medfield resident Jack Bourdon is leading the charge for what he hopes will be the town's newest recreational facility - a park in which to ride his skateboard.

Bourdon and his friends currently rely on their parents to drive them to skate parks in Norfolk, Sherborn, or Hyde Park.

"We just thought it would be easier, and it would be fun to have one in Medfield," Jack said.

Instead of simply wishing for a skate park, Jack collected 141 petition signatures from students, teachers, and even his principal, and then presented his proposal to Parks and Recreation Commission members earlier this month. He is set to go before the board again Tuesday, this time armed with dimensions of other area skate parks, the information gleaned from Google Earth.

"I came away very impressed," said Toby Burrell, chairman of the town commission. "It's not easy to stand up in a room full of adults and make your pitch, and he did it really well."

What's more, Burrell said, he supports the idea and has already identified two possible locations - one at Hinkley Park and another at Metacomet Park.

The major hurdle for Bourdon's proposal, Burrell said, would be money.

"If he can come back and tell us they have a plan, and they have backing and some funding, then we could explore which piece of property we could use," Burrell said.

Still, Burrell said, a skate park would face opposition from some in the community who feel that the town's first skate park, built in the late 1990s, was a failure. That park was dismantled after just a few years to make way for a high school building project.

"The parents were going to supervise and oversee" the town's first skate park, Town Administrator Michael Sullivan recalled in explaining his opposition to the new skate park. "They would take care of the policing of it. The kids would abide by all of the rules. As soon as we built it, the parents disappeared, the kids didn't abide by the rules."

Sullivan said some skaters refused to wear safety equipment, and that several broke bones in falls. Some parents, including those of one skater who fell climbing the facility's fence after hours, blamed the town for the injuries, he said.

"There are some sports that are just too hazardous for communities to take on," Sullivan said.

However, Jean Bourdon said her son wears a helmet and padding and skates with caution. She also noted that the town provides playing fields for other sports in which athletes may be injured, such as football and baseball.

"If you are part of a team sport in Medfield, you have many nice venues, but if you don't participate in team sports, there's not a lot for you to do," Jean Bourdon said. "Kids who skateboard have nowhere to go, other than the streets and the parking lots."

Sullivan, though, said taxpayers shouldn't be required to maintain a facility that encourages a dangerous activity.

"Some kids might like to ride horses," Sullivan said. "We don't provide an equestrian program. There has to be a limit on what towns are willing to provide."

Steve Farrar, a member of the recreation commission, supports building a new skate park, and said that the town could avoid repeating its mistakes. This time, he said, the skate park would be situated where it would be easily visible to passing police cruisers, rather than tucked behind a school building like the previous one. And unlike the original facility, a new park would be unfenced, he said, signaling to users that they would be using the unsupervised facility at their own risk.

Skaters would still be required to wear protective gear, Farrar said, but if they "choose not to, it would be their own risk. Everybody's supposed to wear a seat belt, too, and not everybody does."