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Skater boys find themselves on thin ice in new city parking lot
Any project three long years in the making certainly seems worth capturing on film for posterity sake.
So it was that Greencastle Mayor Sue Murray and her City Hall intern happily made their way over to the long-awaited Southcourt parking lot at Walnut, Indiana and Jackson streets the other afternoon, destined to document a project that began as a proposed parking garage and ended up as one of two new free surface lots in downtown Greencastle.
Before DePauw University Bonner Scholar Eric Bruynseels, the photographer/intern accompanying the mayor, could even get out of the car, Murray had slammed the door of her black Prius, drawing a bead on a couple of teenagers making the new blacktop lot their latest playground.
"Within two hours of the parking lot being open, we found two skateboarders ramping off the stairs," she told the City Council Tuesday night.
"The South Court parking lot was cleared out, swept and open," she told the Banner Graphic, "so Eric and I headed over to take some pictures of the lot for an upcoming state Stellar meeting. We crossed Indiana Street and there they were."
Seems that while city officials and downtown businesses had been waiting three years for the parking lot -- part of the city's Stellar project -- to come to fruition, so apparently had a couple of brazen local skateboarders.
The two boys, probably 16-18 years old, were "ramping off the sidewalk, over the steps and into the parking lot," the mayor described. "Dangerous indeed and potentially injurious to body and vehicles."
Not to mention possibly damaging to smooth, new asphalt and concrete, the curing of which has had city officials on pins and needles like an anxious vintner awaiting his latest crop of juicy grapes.
After the bold teenagers were ordered to cease and desist in no uncertain terms -- "we had a very frank discussion about why that's not OK," Murray offered -- her trusty intern noted their names as the mayor told the teens she hoped never to see them on the city lot cavorting on skateboards ever again.
"Fortunately," Mayor Murray pointed out, "since the lot is being well used, 'open' times for skateboarding may be hard to find.
"We've waited a long time for these lots," she added, admittedly discouraged by the almost immediate misuse by the young skateboarders.
However, what is encouraging, the mayor noted, is that people are already using the new parking lots regularly, even though only the base coat and temporary striping have been applied to the asphalt surfaces at the Southcourt lot and its companion Market Street site just east of the Moose Lodge between Washington and Franklin streets.
With more work yet to be done on the lots once the weather turns warmer, the sites still lack signage, including entrance and exit markings, as well as likely a "no skateboarding" sign.
The new lots provide 52 spaces in the Southcourt lot and 45 in the Market Street lot, which includes the eight parallel spaces adjacent to Market Street.
"The good news," Mayor Murray said, "is people are using them and there are now more spaces (available) on the square."
City Attorney Laurie Hardwick agreed with that assessment, noting that the Southcourt lot, which is just a block south of the square,"was packed today (Tuesday)."
Ditto Councilman Mark Hammer, whose office is little more than a block east of the Southcourt parking area. He said his wife Jeanette is among those already making parking there a habit.
"She's been using it every day since Day One," he said. "It's not that far of a walk from our office."
Especially via skateboard.
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