Board of Aldermen Page 6
August 9, 2016
for once and for all, enough is enough. When you didn’t want the Veteran’s down by the Dr. Crisp
School that got killed. Because this isn’t directly in that neighborhood but it surrounds it. We have the
right and we pay taxes in this city and the people in the neighborhood are outraged so | hope you will
table this and that you will send it back to committee and that we will have a fair hearing in Ward 5 so
everybody gets to ask the questions and find out what is going on and let’s see what the other sites were
because maybe there were better sites than over there by Stellos. Thank you.
Mr. Brian Fisk, 28 Daniel Webster Highway
| am here in support of the relocation of the David W. Deane Skateboard Park. | was on the relocation
committee. The park is extremely important to the skateboarders of Nashua. This is a city issue that we
have to have the relocation. It’s for the economic development of the city that we are doing this. This
isn’t something that the skateboarders wanted. We decided to get involved because it affected us. As far
as transparency goes, | know that there were articles in the Union Leader and multiple articles in the
Telegraph. | work at Eastern Boarder and people were approaching me all of the time wanting to know
more information. There was even a mock footprint printed in the Telegraph of what the skate park was
going to look like. This was more than six months ago. There were many articles about the skate park,
the skate park committee, the Broad Street Parkway site, about the relocation and about the
Renaissance project. The committee came together with a 1,100 signature petition saying that we
wanted to have a new park built before the old park was destroyed. At our first committee meeting the
school department was with us as well as park & rec, economic development and ultimately even the
School Board was interested in looking at New Searle’s, a patchy field on Broad Street, the soccer field
next to where the current skate park is located which was actually a perfect spot but it’s very viable land
and the city has potential plans for that in the future. We could have moved 100 feet to the left and been
fine. This site works for several reasons. As far as congestion, it’s basically right off of the highway.
You get off of Route 3 and you almost turn into the entrance to Stellos. The area where the park is going
to be is basically a cul-de-sac at the end of the road behind the DPW building. It’s buffered on one side
by the Nashua River and Mine Falls. We were talking about changing the footprint of the site to allow for
both parking and access to the new boat ramp for Mine Falls. It shouldn’t encroach on Mine Falls
whatsoever. The other side is buffered by Stellos, by parking lots and by a YMCA. It’s nowhere near a
neighborhood and it doesn’t bring any traffic through a neighborhood. There is no noise issue and as |
stated the last time | was here, even as far as a safety issue the police department is right there. It’s
going to be a perfect recreational site. It’s close to Nashua High South and Nashua High North so the
kids will be able to get there. You can also take the city bus there from anywhere in town. It’s probably a
much better location than where the park is now. The reason that site was chosen was because we
hoped it wouldn’t bother anybody because some of this “not in my backyard” attitude that comes out
when the city has to do anything like this is because people’s impression of young people is that they
don’t like the way they dress, they don’t like the way they look or the cut of their hair. The truth of the
matter is that this is one of the most used facilities in Nashua. You can’t play football or baseball with
two people. Initially there weren’t supposed to be bikes at the skate park because we were worried that
bikes going down would damage the concrete but we can’t stop the bikes or scooters from coming to the
skate park because this is the kind of facility that young people want. It’s outdoors and it’s healthy; it’s
not video games or an app on the phone. It is creative. I’m 42 years old, | am a Nashua native and I’ve
been skateboarding my whole life and it’s done a lot of good for me; for my health and for my ability to
enjoy my job. Getting exercise is a good thing. It’s disappointing that there is a small obstacle with the
School Board because we’ve been working on this for a long time. When the proposed site was on
Broad Street the businesses were saying that it would reduce their property value yet they were putting a
parkway across the street from their businesses. That sort of shows the attitude that people have with
young people. You hear about the Opioid epidemic in New Hampshire, | mean we have serious
problems in this state and these are the kind of positive outlets that are useful and it’s well supported.
These people come down because it matters to them; it’s not an inner city activity. They just built a $5
million skate park in Boston and a $1.5 million skate park in Burlington, VT and the skate parks that are
built in the northeast in the majority aside from Nashua because Nashua took guidance, a complete
waste of money. We are really hoping that we can do something good in Nashua to set the example for
