ET Follow-up on Skate Park Closure

JD Malone of the Express-Times has an article (read it here) following up Monday's closure of the Skate Park that focuses on public officials' responses to what happened and recommendations for how to make it better in the future - in short, better communications.

In the article Malone writes:

Councilman Jack Herbst said Bowers told him Monday morning the park was closed due to trash, only to have Bowers tell him late Monday afternoon he closed it for safety reasons.

Bowers never told acting chief of police Alan Koch why he closed the park, so Koch opened it at noon only to have Bowers close it again. "

And further:

Councilman William Matz wants a supervisor at the skate park to monitor safety and uphold the park's rules against foul language, smoking and poor manners. Coyle supports that idea.

Herbst said the skaters should police themselves.

Finally:

"If (the public property committee) sees a dangerous thing, we have the right to close it down," Bowers said.

Bowers said if borough hall or the police wanted to know why the park was closed, they should have called him.

"I can make that decision without (the police's) help or Jack's (Herbst) help, for that matter," Bowers said.

The Public Property Committee is comprised of three individuals, Bowers (Chairman), Larry Stoudt, and Cindy Werner. While the Skate Park is a piece of Public Property, the Law Committee (Herbst, John Samus, Werner) submitted the Skate Park rules which were reviewed by insurance and counsel prior to adoption. Further, the facility, based on reports citing Herbst in the newspapers, was assembled by the equipment manufacturing company and reviewed by the insurance company in advance of Saturday's opening. How Bowers could determine it was unsafe when the manufacturer and insurance didn't have objections is a question that needs to be addressed, so too could be the implications on liability now if someone does get hurt in-light of his assertion.

I noted earlier that I believed Bowers attempted to provoke a response by shutting the Skate Park down with neither warning nor explanation and created a situation to incite the users of the facility to behave in a way that could be used against them. Taking the brunt of the abuse was Park Manager Heather Coyle who was put in the unenviable and potentially dangerous position of having to explain the closure without having any information to forty or more upset teenagers.

This brings me to Bowers' closing assertions. His committee's rights and the chain of command.

At the 5/31/07 Council Workshop Meeting there was a conversation I summarized as follows:

"Law Committee had several items:

• Policies and procedures for the Park Manager to ensure her safety when tending to Park matters.
• Skate Park rules need to be added to Park regulations and must be approved by Council (a draft was distributed)
• Discussion within the Skate Park rules first raised by Councilman Bowers on the difference between "Refrain" and "No" when beginning the sentence "use of profanity". Then in regard to who the "Borough" was in the context the Borough reserved the right to close the Skate Park at any time for any period of time as deemed necessary (my summary, not actual wording). Ultimately Council President Chiavaroli noted the Park Manager ought to inform Police to close and if serious incident Public Works Committee should determine the length of closure. It was later agreed after more discussion that the "Borough" was adequate for the rule and procedure could determine those eligible to do so."

No where in this conversation did it say that Public Property Committee could shut down the Skate Park. It said the Park Manager could inform police to close the park and then the Committee would determine the length of closure.

Based on this the Park Manager was responsible to make the decision, not the Chairman of the Committee.

There is, however, a loophole. The final rule reads (read them all here):

The Borough reserves the right to close the facility for any circumstances deemed necessary, restrict entry to the facility and ask persons to leave the facility if any of the guidelines are not followed or if unsafe behavior is observed.

The Borough, as noted in the summary above, was never publicly defined. Typically, this would refer to administrative function, Mayor, Police, etc., not individual Council members, though Bowers took it upon himself to be the Borough and outlined his own chain of command in the absence of a written one.

In the end we may blame communications, and this had a large part, but ultimately our Council did not do an adequate job in determining a procedure to address the Skate Park. More clarity should have been given in regard to what would constitute grounds for a closure, who other than the Park Manager and Police were able to (as outlined in the summary) close the Park, how the closure would be communicated, and finally what would take place following a closure (was mentioned in the summary).

By not taking the time to work this out we are left with a bad start to a controversial project and have put ourselves in a hole we need to work out of. The Council, having allocated funds and building the facility, have an obligation to make this Park work for the taxpayers and the Skate Association has a responsibility to work with them to see it happen.