Framingham Town Meeting Green Lights Plans For Skate Park

Framingham Town Meeting overwhelmingly supported a project to build a skate park in Framingham on Tuesday night.

Teens, with their skateboards, cheered as the vote was announced. Although several teens and parents wished to speak before Town Meeting voters, Town Moderator Teri Banerjee never called on them to speak before the vote.

Town Meeting voted 124-4-1 to spend $50,000 to design a concrete skate park and to create an 11-member committee to review options for where the park could be located in Framingham.

Town Meeting rejected a motion to add to school administrators, to be appointed by the Framingham School Committee, to expand the skate board park committee to 13 members. The vote was 50-59-21.

The project was spearheaded by Precinct 15 town meeting member Judith Grove, who said teens have been seeking a park for more than a decade.

Estimated costs to build the concrete skate park is $350,000 and plans are to be submitted no later than 2016.

Grove originally was seeking the town to pay for $175,000 and for the teens and herself to raise the other $175,000.

But Finance Committee member Betty Funk worked out a compromise amendment for Town Meeting to approve just the design phase of $50,000, which was approved during night 10 of Town Meeting.

Framingham Patch was live blogging during Town Meeting, night 10. Click here to read the account.

Grove in making her presentation before Town Meeting said 70 percent of children over the age of 13 drop out of youth sports and the skate park is a great option to keep teens active to fight obesity.

She said that there was less liability for a child to play at a skate park than at a basketball court.

Ways & Means committee chair Harold Gellar said his committee originally had liability and insurance concerns but was swayed and supported the new compromise amendment by Funk.

Grove said it is about time Framingham had a skate park as neighboring Sherborn, with just 4,000 residents has one, and Marlborough is building its third skate park. Grove said everyday, three skate parks are built in the U.S.

The Framingham Planning Board and the Board of Selectmen both supported the project.

Framingham Town Meeting member Jim Rizzoli of Precinct 14 made a motion to sell the Framingham Police command center in a ”garage sale” of unneeded town items and use the funds from that item to fund the skate park. He said the sale of the police command center could fetch $300,000.

The Moderator refused to accept the motion.

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Photo courtesy of Town Meeting member Janet Leombruno