|
FRONT PAGE
Parks
department to can kids summer program
By
Meg Olson
For the second
year in a row, the Point Roberts parks department is looking at
canceling the local summer program for children because they can’t
find anyone to organize and run it. “We have a little bit of time
left, but right now the summer program is still up in the air,”
said board member Irene Waters at the March 6 meeting of the Point
Roberts parks and recreation district board.
The summer
program has traditionally run for five weeks starting in early
July. In 2000 and 2001 the program reached its greatest success
under the direction of Kelly Madsen, with full enrollment and
popular weekly field trips underwritten by a federal grant obtained
by the Blaine Family Service Center. With Madsen’s departure,
Waters said, the department has been unable to find a suitable
replacement. “You have to have quality teachers,” she said, adding
that education students from Western Washington University who
have helped with the program in the past could not be expected
to put in the planning that comes before the program starts.
If the summer
program doesn’t come together again, Waters suggested using the
funds elsewhere. “If this doesn’t happen again this year we should
earmark the funds for more athletic equipment,” she said. “We’ve
been talking skatepark for quite some time.”
Board member
David Niles, who has been working with a group of local parents
and kids to build a skatepark on the Point, said he was working
with the district’s insurance company on what it would take to
get liability insurance for such a facility. “They’re considering
it,” he said. “We’re not touching it without insurance,” Waters
said.
The board
also toyed with several possible locations for the skatepark at
Baker Field and sources for prefabricated ramps. Waters said they
were not considering a permanent concrete facility, like the one
next to the recreation center in Tsawwassen, or a covered skatepark.
“We can’t afford that but we can start small and build on it,”
she said.
BACK
TO TOP
|
