I remember when they were making the plans for the community park in Old Town. They said that they were going to have a place for the teenagers to roller blade and skate board, ride their bikes and whatnot. It never happened.

I remember when they asked the teenagers to stop playing ice hockey at the Milford park. They told them that they would create a place for them to play ice hockey, but that was a few years ago and they haven’t done so yet.

They did manage to put a place in the YMCA for them here in Old Town, which was nice.

People take issue when the teenagers are skateboarding in public, but they don’t want to give them a place for this activity in their own communities. This is sad. They get in trouble for things like skateboarding in roads, when they have no other place to do this activity. They aren’t even hurting anyone.

I believe that we need to have places for our teenagers to hang out. Places where they do not get to cause trouble (because some do).

They should have access in their own communities to a place where they can do multiple things:

• roller blade
• use BMX bikes
• roller skate
• skate board
• play arcade games
• play pool
• study/read
• work on community action programs
• watch a movie
• have a cafe or cafeteria with decent food

Is this too much to ask for? I think not. We provide areas for younger children to play. I believe that we should extend toe same courtesy to our teenagers.

Shannon

P.S. Do you have any ideas for a communtiy based teen center? Please tell us about them in the comments section. Thank you.