On Monday the 16th there was
a Windham Parks and Recreation meeting to continue discussion on the skate park
plans. The original designer and builder of the park Josh Benson was in
attendance. He will be meeting with a structural engineer on June 2nd to go
through the park to salvage what structures are still safe, and mark the ones
that need to be taken down. Right now in the budget there is $5,000 to use on
the park for this fiscal year. Benson has estimated $66,000 to fix and rebuild
all the unsafe aspects of the park. For the wooden park, maintenance needs
to be performed yearly to keep the elements from deteriorating from use. The
initial building cost for the park was $21,000. Over the past 16 years of
maintenance $89,000 has been spent to keep the park in good shape. The
soundproofing efforts also cost $12,000, and some of those efforts shortened
the life of the elements. 
At the park there are long deep cracks
in the pavement, as well as big holes. Most of the edges of all of the elements
are chewed up to the point of the skate light (the material used to cover the
parts of the elements that are used to skate on) is not even there. There are
places where the metal plates that are connected to the bottom of all the
elements are not flush with the skate light, or is not connected at all. There
are parts in the middle of the ramps where the skate light has been chipped
away, and screws stick out of the wood. On the stairs there is one board that
lifts off the stringers, and there is another piece that has been broken in
two. In more than one place the screw that holds the skate light in place has
dug a hole through the skate light and now doesn’t hold anything.
Regardless of what the town decides to
do additional attention will be needed at the park before it can be reopened.
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