Forget all the politics involved, I’d really just like to be able to have a skatepark in St Kilda (partly because it would be across the street from where I work). However, there’s a war going on between skateboarders and people who want the park built, and everyone else that doesn’t (which includes Trevor Marmalade aparently). If you have Outlook or another email client, click here to send an email to the local MP John Thwaites telling him that you skate and you vote (it’s all written for you). If you’ve got hotmail or another web-based email read more so you can copy and paste the needed text. Renton Millar wrote a very interesting article about whats been going on with the St Kilda skatepark. Did you know that Trevor Marmalade believes that drug based disease are spread at skateparks? Read more to have a read.

Do you hate the way skateboarders are pigeon holed in society? Do you hate having wealthier, more influential people push you around because they think
skateboarders are just kids?

There are some residents in St Kilda that are extremely anti skatepark, and they are trying to ruin our hopes of getting our proposed convic plaza built (which happens to be in a realy rad location in St Kilda). You can help by quickly sending an email to our Member of parliament, John Thwaites, before the election reminding him that “you skate, and you vote”. The story of what is going on, and how you can help is below. Please help us get the park built. We urgently need your help by dropping this quick email.

The story:

About a year ago I joined the the cause to help along St Kilda Skate Park (which happens to be a sick convic park). I rallied a up a bunch of crew to go to what was supposed to be the last meeting for it. A lot of skaters went, and greatly outnumbered the opposition to the skatepark by about 10 to 1.

The skatepark was passed through council and was supposed to go ahead. Unfortunately then, a lot of the opposition brought in their famous friends (Ian Hewitson, Trevor Marmalade and a bunch of other arty cosmopolitan type St Kilda sophistos, that obviously feel a skatepark cramps their St Kilda lifestyle. They then rallied against the park. What then happened was the skatepark opposition trying to get the local MP John Thwaites to overturn the councils decision for a skatepark by mass emailing him. The skaters won again bombarding Thwaites office with 5 times more emails than the anti skatepark people.

…The skaters win again.

What then ensued was a campaign in the local paper by the opposition to slander skaters to create fear about the skatepark in the community. That involved Trevor Marmalade and the other anti skate followers imply that along with a skatepark came violence, anti social behavior, vandalism to the surrounding areas as well as Trevor Marmalades call that drug related disease were spread at skateparks (can you believe that?!!!!, he said that in an article in the local paper). Luckily for the skate park cause, a lot of locals wrote and stuck up for the skaters and made the skatepark opposition look like the shallow minded people they were being.

Again the skaters won that fight, but the skatepark opposition proved that they will stop at nothing to stop the skatepark and they are happy to fight dirty.

We actually already knew about these type of tactics in the past, as they enlisted the help of the respected school principal to speak at the council meetings of a study that was done that proved schools near skateparks were prone to violence, vandalism, anti social behaviour, bullying and intravenous drug use. She quoted a “study on skateparks” that proved her “facts”. The funniest part of this study was the documentation was never shown, and the results were contrary to studies that St kilda council, and St Kilda Police conducted (by the way, St Kilda Police have endorsed the skatepark project).

At the moment in the current situation the skaters hold the upper hand and the park is going ahead as far as council are concerned. The problem now is that the Skatepark opposition group are going to use the coming election to turn around the good work done by the Skatepark supporters. In the next week or two the anti skatepark lobby will begin their campaign to stop the St Kilda Skatepark and try and sway the publics opinion in the local media.

This issue is about to come to a head, and without skaters help we might lose this new convic plaza. Thats where we need your help, and this is how you do it.

Write a quick email to John Thwaites (john.thwaites@parliament.vic.gov.au) saying that “I support the St Kilda Skatepark, and I vote” if you could cc’ this person it would be rad too fblair@portphillip.vic.gov.au

Thanks for that, and hopefully see you at St Kilda park when it is finished, it will be rad, and is in one of the raddest locations I have seen.

Renton Millar.