Since the Lockhart City Council allocated funds for the construction of the Lockhart Skate Park, it has been no secret that I’ve been concerned about the project. While I’m not dead-set against it, as many think, I’ll confess that I take issue with the council setting aside funds to serve a small segment of the community, when there are so many broader, more universal needs.

Throughout the process of the construction of the Skate Park, when I have expressed my concerns, I have been called everything from “rigid” to a “kid-hater.” And although I can understand how it might seem that way, I always ask people to bear in mind that many of the skaters I’ve had contact with have been rude, disrespectful and mean-spirited.

Those I have seen and dealt with are probably the bad apples that give the rest of these kids a bad name - the ones that skate around town making traffic hazards of themselves, destroying private and public property and volunteering ugly attitudes and even uglier language to any adult that has the audacity to ask them to go somewhere else.

Based on those experiences, I have worried, throughout this project, we as a community have offered up cash and resources to a group of kids that aren’t going to appreciate it.

As a teenager in Lockhart, I remember watching my brother and his friends, as their interests in skateboarding and freestyle bicycling grew, build ramps and half-pipes from whatever second-hand lumber they could lay their hands on. I know for a fact there were at least two half-pipes in town at that time, and any number of driveway ramps. And I have often wondered why this generation’s crop of skaters and bikers didn’t take some initiative and do the same thing.

The truth of the matter is, I don’t know if they have or not. What I do know is the statement “We don’t have anywhere else to go,” has been the standard excuse offered when skaters are asked to leave private property.

Upon hearing that, I always think... When the boys I knew didn’t have anywhere else to go, they made somewhere else to go. They didn’t use a lack of publicly-funded venues as an excuse to tear up private property.

So I had a lot of mixed feelings when I attended the grand opening of the Lockhart Skate Park on Sunday. Make no mistake, I offer my most sincere congratulations to the members and leadership of OnARoll, Inc., for their ability to successfully drive and complete the project. I’m impressed with the fact they willed that dream into solid reality.

I was delighted to see how well-built the Skate Park is. It’s wonderful that the skaters will have a venue that takes them off the sidewalks, out of the parking lots, and out of harm’s way. So much the better that the venue was not built by vocationally-challenged teenage hands.

With that being said, I’m still concerned.

I worry that now that the construction of Phase I is complete, the Skate Park will lose its popularity when it stops being a novelty. I worry that the skaters, some of whom have shown consistent disrespect for the community that has sought to help them, will return to their “old ways,” skating on our streets and sidewalks, and damaging private property and historic buildings downtown.

I’m concerned that someone is going to get hurt out there, and instead of accepting the fact that extreme sports can be dangerous, a parent is going to sue the City when his or her child tries to learn a stunt outside his or her skill set and takes a bad fall.

And I’m worried budget constraints are going to cause the park to, little by little, fall into disrepair, eventually rendering it useless. I worry the Skate Park won’t be appreciated or taken care of by the people it was meant to serve.

Truth told - there is a large part of me that would be willing to be that I’m right about all my concerns.

Even deeper than my worry, though, I have hope.

I hope that somewhere in Lockhart, we are raising the next John Lucero or Tony Hawk - a professional skater whose abilities the opening of the Skate Park will allow to blossom. I hope the popularity of the park I witnessed on Sunday will hold out, and even grow, to the point the Skate Park can expand to welcome other extreme sports.

When push comes right to shove, what I hope for most is that our youth prove me wrong.
kathibliss@post-register.com