Time For Skaters To Repay Community - With Respect

Well, the ball - or in this case, roller wheel - finally is in the skateboarders’ court. They now have enough money to finish Coeur d’Alene Skate Park - thanks to an unexpected infusion of $15,000 Tuesday from the Coeur d’Alene City Council. Skaters no longer can say that no one cares. Or that no one has given them an opportunity to prove themselves. Many, including The Spokesman-Review and rival Hagadone Corp., have coughed up a total of more than $100,000 in land, donations, time and materials for this project. Skaters can show their appreciation by treating Coeur d’Alene Skate Park responsibly. That means applying peer pressure to destructive knuckleheads (like the jackass who spray-painted red squiggles on Skate Park barriers last weekend). In the past, skaters have hurt their image by using (and destroying) public property for tricks. Skate Park can become a model for Northwestern communities. Or an eyesore. It’s up to the kids to decide which it’ll be.

Stick their heads in concrete

Speaking of destructive knuckleheads, Earth First!ers are up to their old tricks. Two men, including one identifying himself as “Captain Kirk,” tried to stop forest-road building in the Cove-Mallard area Tuesday by sticking their arms in wet cement. But the bumbling space cadets were discovered and freed before the cement hardened. Or at least they were freed so they could be taken directly to jail. In the past, protesters have buried themselves in logging roads, used bicycle locks to attach their necks to gates, locked themselves to the bumpers of cop cars and attempted to drain the oil from law enforcement vehicles. (Didn’t crazy antics like this go out of fashion with the peace movement of the ‘60s?) Most environmentalists say they disapprove of the method to Earth First!’s madness. But their denunciations lack conviction.

Make graffiti artists, vandals pay, work

Here’s one that oughta be a law everywhere. A new law requiring offenders and their parents to pay for graffiti damage to businesses is working in Rupert, Idaho. The ordinance makes graffiti a crime, along with possessing a graffiti instrument such as spray paint. It also holds parents of offenders liable to the city and requires property owners to clean up the damage within 72 hours. A father of one youth charged with graffiti settled with nearly all property owners who suffered at junior’s hands through cash and work. Add a similar law for vandalism, and I think we have something that may work in North Idaho, too.

, DataTimes