Buffalo Rising Online

Still a nice shot, I like the ghoulish silhouette of the lighthouse in the background. Putting in a skate / BMX park in some of the underutilized fringe areas of downtown would be a good draw to the area. It would bring a different segment of population to downtown. There are lots of dark under the highway areas, not being used for anything that these people would love.

Nice photo!

So what exactly does this do for the city? What is the benefit? A mention in a magazine that is so obscure that even the cover model doesn't know he is on it? And why do we need a skate and bike park? What is the economic benefit of the park if it is free to the public? Will this stimulate the economy, bring in new businesses and jobs? I don't really think so. We really are desperate for any attention that we can get, very pathetic.

Einstein, the whole idea of the skate park is to bring people to downtown which would then spend money at accompanying institutions. To get ride of the "why would I go downtown, there isn't anything to do." Sure not every one uses these facilities but for those that do it is another place to go, hang and have fun. Creating memories and putting people back into the streets is how you create a safe place. Leaving the streets empty is exactly why no one feels safe in the first place.

Sbrof - It is my understanding that there are several parks and 'unofficial' places for skaters in the city and the suburbs. They are already out there, just look at the pictures above, people are finding obstacles and elements to ride on and jump on. Will concentrating them into one area really make a difference, or will we still have people jumping off obstacles at the marina and naval park? Just curious if you really think that this will make a difference or if you would just like a city run and taxpayer funded place to skate because you enjoy it. Perhaps we should open a city run rifle, trap, and skeet club just to bring in people from the suburbs? How about a city run dog fighting arena, I am sure that a lot of people on the East and West sides would make great use of that!

I went to high school with Jim, and he was always the sickest rider, always digging up new freestyle tricks and pushing the limits. We would be over his house every afternoon in the summer riding bikes and boards on his 8' half pipe...what a blast those years were. Good to see someone sticking to their true passion!

Hoss - Really? So a skatepark will keep people from leaving the area and will attract new businesses. I want to see you quantify that.

Hoss - by far the biggest reason young grads move away from this area is relatively fewer corporate job opportunities, not some imagined lack of things to do around here.

jimc - Do you seriously think a new government-owned skateboard park would impose LESS rules?

The other parks in the area are all pay and require people to where pads and such. Most people all over the world don't wear pads, so nobody uses those parks.

If anything, there'd be more rules once City Hall legal department approved all the paperwork.

Einstein frames the issue very well. Simply making a new skate park downtown will have no serious 'economic benefit' as sbrof claims. If skaters decide to 'spend money at accompanying institutions' downtown as sbrof suggests they would, that just moves their spending from some other neighborhood to downtown. Suppose for example ten skaters go to the accompanying institution of Jim's Steakout downtown. How is that any better than if they skated near one of the other Jim's locations and then ate there afterward?

There'd be no new tangible economic benefits at all, just extra costs to taxpayers to build the park and then every year to maintain it, enforce rules, and fund risk liability. This in a city that for the past two years has said it can't afford to repair and open the LaSalle Park swimming pool.

People who want a taxpayer funded skate park should just be candid that they're asking for a piece of the pie, a little special interest pork project for something they personally think is cool. However, the tax-funded coolness evidently will wear off pretty quick if what jimc says above is correct that protective equipment rules will ruin the whole experience. Oh well, back to Square One. How about something cool for artists - lofts maybe?

By the way, I've nothing against these guys or what they do for fun, and I agree they should be allowed to accept risks as long as it's on property that the owner doesn't mind it happening on. So my comment isn't putting them down, but saying the grand claims others are making for some benefit to the area don't add up.

I don't know who proposed it that way (maybe a politician saying what you want to hear?), but common sense would tell us by the time City Hall attorneys approve all this it would have as many rules as the existing places about you commented previously that "nobody uses" because of their rules.

Well to be honest that is the way the skatepark is proposed, less rules. ...

Not sure it makes much difference either way, but what you said that there's a police station 'half a block away' doesn't sound like a waterfront location. Closet police station to downtown waterfront I think is District B at Main/Tupper at least a mile away.

A city is more at risk if there is someone there to monitor the park besides there is a police station a half a block from the proposed site.... As for tangible economic differences, again this is just one piece of the under utilized waterfront puzzle. ...

What's the best example of another city where you've seen this happen? The very best success story for an economic impact comparison?

...People will travel from Toronto, Ohio, PA, Rochester, Niagara Falls and every suburban community to downtown Buffalo. I've seen it happen in other cities, so why not Buffalo....

Because I don't agree with you about this, that makes me narrow minded and ignorant? Nice.

I can't believe how narrow thinking some people in this town, and on this site are. I'm almost wondering if these ignorant statements are generated by the employees of buffalo rising to generate controversy and hence more page views/ad revenue.

I'm almost wondering if these unnecessarily personal insults are generated by the employees of buffalo rising to generate controversy and hence more page views/ad revenue.

NY State's 2007 state+local tax burden per capita: $6522 (3rd highest of 50 states as % of income).

Colorado's 2007 state+local tax burden per capita: $4509 (30th highest of 50 states as % of income).

NYS is over $2000 per resident higher, almost 50% greater than Colorado's $4509 per resident.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/pf/0704/gallery.tax_friendliest/8.html

NY State's ranking for having a good state business tax climate in 2008: 48th best out of 50.

Colorado's ranking for having a good state business tax climate in 2008: 13th best out of 50.

http://www.ppinys.org/reports/jtf/businesstax.htm

Maybe those reasons are something to do with why cities in Colorado are attracting companies, jobs, and people at so much better a rate than Upstate NY cities. Maybe that just might be something to consider instead of more, mre, and more spending ideas? Just a thought. I know that way of looking at things will never catch on a lot here, but it's just a narrow-minded ignorant thought I'll offer up for consideration.

Hmmm... JohnMartin, then who would be the fake commenters? Probably they're all real. But it raises an interesting question - if they ever started getting a lot fewer comments that take a different viewpoint from their editorial philosophy, would the greater agreement of comments with articles result in the site's clicks going up, down, or staying about the same?

Btw, note to anybody who sends personal messages on BR: if you leave any message's title blank then it seems there's no way for a recipient to open the message for reading. It needs at least one word in the title to click on. I've received a couple like that, most recently today.

Hoss - No it wasn't worth being offended about, but I just felt like mentioning the pointless rudeness. Thanks for the apology, but no, I'm not ignorant about the Sheriff's office location. What was said was 'police station' so that made me think only of the five BPD stations and I just asked for a small clarification out of curiosity - and even right then I wrote that it didn't matter to my point. If you write a put down about ignorance every time any commenter asks anybody else for a small clarification like that, you'll be pretty busy. Likewise if any opinions that differ from yours about ideas like skate parks will be receiving the 'narrow minded' label from you, then we might see that a lot too.

However, most BR commenters write opinions much closer to yours than mine. Usually comments here are in favor of spending tax money on ideas like skate parks. And of course articles by QE and other BR writers universally praise such ideas. But all that agreement with your viewpoint still isn't quite enough for you? You want, what, 100% agreement with your priorities for quality of life improvements?

Anyone who’s tiring to read as you say I am should be clicked Avoid User and conserve your energy for reading views more often in tune with your own. Who besides you do you imagine cares if you find my attitude tiring? I’ll tell you what sounds a lot more ‘perpetually cranky’ than anything I write – and that’s the all complaining on this site about opinion diversity. It makes complainers sound like the ones who are narrow minded or insecure.

Buffaloborn1984 - I dunno about Einstein, but I’m not against a skate park downtown or anywhere. But just make it a business. Restaurants, coffee houses, and bars are all great to have too, and some of those draw people to the city - but we don’t ask the government to spend tax money it collects from poor city residents to build and maintain those do we? Unfortunately, the government does get involved once in a while such as that former brewhouse downtown a few years ago - and those usually fail badly.

This city already has a ton of free parks, playgrounds, and pools in this city, and the politicians keep saying they don’t even have enough money to properly maintain the ones we have. Yet there’s money to build and maintain more? How’s that work? The city depends on the state for most of its money, the state has a multi-billion deficit and is raising fees and hiking mandates to counties, and taxes are already close to highest in the nation. What I want is for whatever money is allocated to parks to be spent on our existing parks, playgrounds, and pools.

You or some of your friends should find investors and buy or rent property downtown, start up a skate park, and set whatever rules they want, or no rules at all - whatever. From what I hear it’s a sure thing to draw people from all over WNY and even other states and Canada. Sounds like a great business opportunity, doesn’t it?

jimc - To clarify, by 'make it a business' I meant a privately business with no government subsidy, so there'd be no risk of wasting any taxpayer dollars. My last paragrpah in previous comment made it more clear. Just like if somebody wanted to open a new bar, or dress shop, or Hyperlocal Media Web Site. Those things improve quality of life here too.

If so many people will really come from all over WNY, Ohio, PA, and even Toronto to spend time at a very good skate park, it should be able to make money various ways. If it can't, then that would make me wonder about how many people are really as interested and dedicated as we might think. But I will be positive. I will be optimistic and expect the skate park to be a huge success for whoever believes in the idea enough to make it happen as a private sector venture without asking low income residents of Buffalo to contribute via their taxes and without drawing taxpayer funds away from so many greater human needs.

To answer your question about basketball and tennis courts, I would not build any brand new ones of those either for the same reasons I explained. To quote myself:

This city already has a ton of free parks, playgrounds, and pools in this city, and the politicians keep saying they don’t even have enough money to properly maintain the ones we have. Yet there’s money to build and maintain more? How’s that work? The city depends on the state for most of its money, the state has a multi-billion deficit and is raising fees and hiking mandates to counties, and taxes are already close to highest in the nation. What I want is for whatever money is allocated to parks to be spent on our existing parks, playgrounds, and pools. [and including our existing basketball courts and tennis courts].

Besides, nobody will come from all over WNY and Toronto to play on our basketball courts or tennis courts. You said there's a huge market demand for a very good skate park here:

jimc Yesterday, 16:59 ...When the park gets built, you will see people using it every day and at all times of the year. People will travel from Toronto, Ohio, PA, Rochester, Niagara Falls and every suburban community to downtown Buffalo. ..

Hard to believe so many young able-bodied people will drive two hours or more to get to it, but then when they get here demand that its upkeep be paid for by property taxes of fixed income East Side seniors. They'll be willing to pay to get in. They all willingly pay cover charges when they go out to clubs, etc. This would be no different. Higher prices on weekends, discounts for any-day memberships that locals would buy - some creative young entrepreneur could experiment around with pricing schemes, sell advertising, hold promotions with equipment manufactures, magazines, and so on. If the city bureaucrats tried any of that they'd f it up really bad.

Ha sounds good. Yes, seeing is believing. If I'm still in Buffalo when the politicians have this built for you, I'll try to stop by to see all the excitement it generates and the people from PA, Ohio, and Canada who come here for it. I agree I have a lot to learn.

Buffaloborn - Einstein is my last name, jackass!

Jimc - I am curious to see if the creation of the park actually has the desired effect. I agree with most of what AtwaterLouse has to say in his posts. This project is aimed at a specific minority of the population that partakes in a particularly risky individual sport that is very different than basketball or baseball. I also looked into some of the other municipal skate parks around the country and most of them are not doing well. The comments on most of them rank them as "boring, clunky, sterile, easy, and lame", and most of the successful (or at least lasting parks) charge a fee, are controlled, and only open during certain hours of the day. Take a look at the park in Ocean City Maryland as an example.

I also noticed that the City of Batavia opened a skate park near their ice rink a few years ago. I wonder about the economic impact that this park had on the City of Batavia. Are there hundreds of sk8rs from across NY flocking to downtown Batavia every weekend?

Jim, no offense, but you have a vested interest in the creation of this park. You own a skate shop, not far from the proposed park, and I am sure that you would welcome the extra business that this park would generate. Speaking of small business, wouldn't this park take paying customers away from Xtreme Wheels?

One more clarification for your statement: "You would waste more tax payer dollars building an under utilized skatepark then you would if you made the park free." A city run park is not free, it is funded by the city at the expense of the taxpayers. I believe that Atwater has already stated this in several ways. I am sorry to say that you do not seem to understand how "it" works.

Jim- Thanks for the response. Yes, I am still not convinced that this is a great idea for the city of Buffalo. I understand your perspective and optimism; however it sounds like a lot of municipalities have tried this type of park and failed to capture the target audience. You cite three or four examples of parks that are not popular with the skaters or bikers, for whatever reason. What assurances do you have that the Buffalo park won't suffer the same fate? Do we know that the park will not require pads, have substandard ramps, or be made of sticky blacktop? I would much rather see this as a private development (as Atwater indicates above). If the market is there, then it should make sense, even if it was created and run by a not-for-profit organization. I might even donate to that as a one time gift, but I am concerned about increasing the already overwhelming burden on taxpayers for any reason. One of the obstacles to new business development and growth is the high tax rates in WNY.

As far as baseball and volleyball parks, these parks generate revenue for the city. Youth and adult leagues pay the city parks and recreation department for the use and maintenance of the fields. Basketball courts, like skateparks, are generally maintenance free but do attract a much wider audience of participants. Spend a few hours near the Delaware Park courts and you will see a broad mix of people playing pick-up games or shooting baskets on their own. The key to the basketball courts is that they are already built, with a minor burden on the taxpayers. If someone was to propose the development of a new basketball court or baseball diamond, I would maintain the same opinion that I have for the skate park.

I will agree to disagree, and hope that this doesn't become another item on my tax bill for next year. Now if you can figure out how to get rid of the insanely high medicaid contributions on my property tax, then I will be all for the development of the skate park.

This whole thing won't matter to me in a year because I am looking to move out of state with two of my friends from UB. The property taxes keep going up while the value of my property remains relatively flat. Contributions to the City, County, and State are nothing short of unreasonable, my utility costs are going up again, and the job market is great if you have a job (I do) but it is limited as far as upward and lateral mobility into other companies. I would love to stay and fight, but the taxes keep rising, the expenses keep increasing, and I am losing hope that Byron Brown, Chris Collins, or Elliott Spitzer really have the desire to do anything about it.

I think the private / non-profit development is the way to go, but that is just my opinion. Thank you for entertaining it.

jimc - On a forum like this yeah there's nit picking sometimes, but fair minded scruitiny is something you should welcome and I think for the most part you do. Believe it or not the two people speaking against tax funding for your idea (not against you, and not against your idea - just against tax funding for it - hopefully you see the difference) are honestly not nit picking. For sure that's not my intent and Einstein's comments look reasonable too.

You're a great advocate for your view. But you're right, there's probably nothing to convince me tax money should pay for this. Nothing so far was even close to making me think it should have higher priority than many other needs I won't list. But don't stop reading, it gets better. Also, I'm skeptical it would have serious economic benefits if the _government_ people design it, build it, and operate it. Even if they get advice from you they'll do some things different and you'll be complaining how stupid they are, and probably you'll be right. All that's why I suggested a privately owned approach. Some of my ideas for that probably sucked but it was just examples. Maybe there wouldn't even need to be admission charged and there could be food/drink concessions or something, plus advertising and events. Your ideas would be much better.

My comments explained why I'm against tax funding. Einstein made similar points. In a nutshell, this is nearly the highest taxed area in the U.S., the state has a huge budget deficit and is taking more and more money from businesses and residents, some current parks and pools in Buffalo haven't been well maintined for years. Even though your park won't be the most expensive thing in the world, things add up and it'd need funding future years too - basically forever.

Besides, it sounds like something someone like you or your friends might accomplish without tax money and even earn profit. Even if you broke even or lost a little, you'd be in control. It's not as though you guys are charity cases needing govt hand outs for something you happen to love when there's so many real needs in this city going unmet. All that's meant as a compliment, believe it or not.

Good news for you is I don't matter. The mayor, all 9 council members, and Sam Hoyt and other state legislators don't share my view. They love handing out tax funds for special interest projects like this, even when there's no money they'll find some. And they're very open to convincing about claimed economic benefits. Many examples such as their prediction Bass Pro will draw some insane number of visitors to Buffalo per year. I forgot how many but it was huge and they say it with a straight face. So if you keep focused and be nice to them, I bet you'll have luck. A difficulty might be the state budget this year, so you might have to do extra lobbying with them and I'd guess it might take a few years but who knows.

Jim - What makes you think that I don't enjoy snowboarding (I have for more than a decade), Skiiing (20+ years), mountain biking, hiking, weight lifting, boating, fishing, and all the other things that I do. I actually use to BMX and skate in the early 90s and enjoyed it tremendously. Your assumptions that you are better because you bike is asinine. I have no reason to defend myself or my view to a closed minded, myopic and self-serving person like yourself. Your comments about getting outside, while you are sitting inside typing on your own keyboard is equally amusing.

Try opening your eyes and mind to embrace a difference of opinion. I had respect for you and your opinion until that last post, it showed a great deal of immaturity. If you want my name, number, address, or anything else then please PM me.

Take care and good luck. - JE

jimc - Doesn't matter to me if you're nice or not, or where you're at. It's easy to be nice to people who agree with us. Sometimes more difficult to be nice, or evidently even to be civil without calling anyone @#$%&, to people with different viewpoints.

You two are @#$%&! ...

Sometimes I'm nice and sometimes I'm really sarcastic. Take it!

Whatever.

But when you talk to politicians and government officials you should be nice even if any of them maybe 'don't get it' the way you say I don't. Calling any of them @#$%& as you called Einstein and me might hurt your prospects for them ever spending taxpayer money the way you want. I won't hold a grudge, but they sure would. All right I'm all done with this now until the ribbon cutting.