People are invited to attend the official opening of Yarmouth's skateboard park on Friday, Dec 7, at 4 p.m. The park is located on the corner of Main and Commercial streets across from Emin's Meat Market, just north of the south end playground.
When people gather this Friday it will be celebrated as a dream realized.
Back in the late 1980s a group of young people organized behind an effort to build a half pipe on Forest Street. That was the beginning of the dream. Since then successive committees have raised money, lobbied councils and doggedly pursued the vision of a state-of-the-art recreation complex for skateboarders, inline skaters and bmx cycliists.
It has been decades in the making and the costs of getting it done reached levels not conceived of in its beginnings. Construction of the $435,000 project began this summer after a hard-fought budget debate culminated in a commitment to spend up to an additional $197,000 to get the project completed. That was in addition to the $150,000 that had already been committed through the town's capital reserve fund. At the time council directed staff to get started on construction and to continue looking for other sources of funding.
At that time the town had secured $88,000 in funding from provincial and other municipal sources. Just last month the federal government contributed $114,000 towards the project.
Demonstrations are planned in addition to the official ceremonies. Refreshments will be served.
