Alex Reid

We got our “World Class” skatepark in Winnipeg!

It was announced – officially – 13 months ago that the skatepark I lobbied for, would be built at the Forks. And it opened yesterday afternoon. I couldn’t make it due to work, but the word is that it was jampacked with more boards than space.

I think this is great for Winnipeg, and for the Forks especially. Six years ago, I was part of a group called ‘Forks for people, not profit’. At the time, the Forks was developing much of its vast empty land for commercial reasons (eg. Hotel, parking lot) and was planning on cementing the rest. I am a huge advocate of more recreational and greenspace in Winnipeg’s inner city – it’s 1/3 the national standard of greenspace to people. At that time, I felt that if the Forks was determined to cement the land, it might as well be for recreation. (When I refer to the Forks, I mean the managing board of the Forks)

Of course, that’s not why I started the skateboarding association or we choose the Forks as a prime candidate. But it was certainly a personal bias on the choice.

We chose the Forks from list of empty central locations. We chose the Forks because of several reasons. First, when we initiated the meeting with the Forks, the board was super pumped about the whole idea. At first they wanted the park in what they call an “industrial” area of the Forks which is the farthest away from anything important, next to the train bridge and the baseball park. I suppose later on, they realized, they should stick cars there instead.

The second reason was because it was downtown. To sell this to City Council, each City Councillor’s first priority (typically) is to judge the benefit and value to their respective ward. Besides, it only makes sense to place a ‘City’ asset like this relatively central. But politics is the only thing that matters at City Hall and as such, “downtown” is higher priority than many other things. The City Hall structure allows approval for downtown projects without need of the normal process (one of the things I learned working at City Hall). So, on September 2002, I got City Hall (via EPC) to officially agree to work with us on this project.

I never expected the city to put money into a skatepark, at a time when they could barely keep the swimming pools open. Sure this city is “conservative”, but it’s also grossly financially incompentent. Year after year, budgets barely break even.

The third reason was that we wanted the city to help cut the red tape, and to make facilities for skateboaders a priority as that was the one ‘sport’ they were ignoring, even criminalizing. Also, from a legal standpoint, “liability” was a key obstacle.

The fourth reason was, to lobby anything to a Conservative City Council, you have to “sell” it. So we sold the idea for its commercial spinoffs. Skaters aren’t poor. They have money, and after skating it up, they need a drink or some eats. Wouldn’t the Forks be a nice spot? Sure it’s crass, but it works.

There was a lot of politics and surprising, many player haters. It’s funny though, when I read the papers and I see these same player haters who used to hate on us for trying to build the skatepark, now are not only praising it, but saying it was overdue. That’s funny.

There’s quite a few people to thank here. Many people at the Forks (like Paul Jordan) and JW Burns Family Foundation are primarily to thank for understanding not only the need for such a facility, but seemed as eager as I was to introduce some “play” into the area.

Murray, even though in the end he totally let us down, was a great supporter in the build up of lobbying for the skatepark. Bob Somers was also a great help in helping us hook up with Scatliff + Miller + Murray. There’s more people to thank.. but really, the most thanks go out to the many Winnipeggers who supported this.

WOOT!