As a skateboarding youth in Ellsworth, Derek Cole remembers having a number of run-ins with the regulation for skating the place he shouldn’t have been.
Whereas the 35-year-old Bucksport dad doesn’t shred a lot anymore, he’s main an area effort to get a brand new skate park in Hancock County so youngsters within the area can take pleasure in skating with out doubtlessly chalking up a felony document.
Cole and his fellow members of Skate Bucksport, a grassroots group, will go earlier than city officers subsequent week to attempt to persuade them to construct a skate park at an outdated basketball courtroom on the town. If that occurs, the park can be the one skate park inside a half-hour drive.
“We used to skate and get in hassle with regulation enforcement,” Cole stated. “With out a place to skate, that’s the kind of factor that may occur.”
The concept began to come back collectively when Beau Lambert, who ran a skatepark in New Hampshire that was one of many largest motion sports activities amenities on the East Coast, posted in an area Bucksport Fb web page saying he was trying to give away his ramps after closing his park through the pandemic.
With the prospect to get costly tools for simply the price of transportation, Skate Bucksport began to kind and started eyeing the vacant paved pad between a playground and baseball diamond on Elm Avenue.
“We’re hoping to make use of that house to make it extra accessible and visual,” Cole stated.
The concept of a skate park in Bucksport has been raised up to now however by no means got here to fruition. Cole thought it might be a very good factor for the mill city that’s attempting to reimagine itself. The subsequent closest skateparks are in Belfast, Bangor and Bar Harbor, all a little bit of a haul for skateboarding teenagers to journey.
Skate Bucksport will ask the city to facilitate the development and personal the park. If the city is onboard with utilizing its land and operating a park, it might occur pretty quick and at a comparatively low price.
With the preliminary ramps being donated by Lambert and volunteer work from an area carpenter, Skate Bucksport places the venture price at about $7,000. The group estimated that development would solely take a number of weeks, relying on schedules.
Mark Eastman, a member of the Bucksport City Council, thought it might be good for teenagers and was usually receptive to the idea, however wished to get extra particulars on the proposal.
“I’m not against that location,” he stated.
