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Port teen’s efforts to reopen skate park pay off

Rose Weldon
Jett Gillis at the Town of North Hempstead-run Manorhaven skate park, which he led efforts in re-opening. (Photo courtesy of Manny Gillis)

Thanks to the efforts of a Port Washington teenager and his friends, a beloved town-run gathering spot is scheduled to reopen after closing due to COVID-19 two months ago.

For Jett Gillis, 13, of Manorhaven, the pandemic meant he couldn’t take part in the varsity wrestling team at Schreiber High School, which he had made despite being a student at Carrie Palmer Weber Middle School. With school sports canceled, he found a new hobby to keep active.

“I had a skateboard in my closet that I’d gotten a while ago, so I decided to take it out,” Gillis said in an interview.

From the spring through late fall, Gillis and his friends frequented the Manorhaven skate park, going daily while wearing masks and adhering to social distancing. But in November, the Town of North Hempstead closed the park, citing reports of large groups congregating there without masks and not practicing social distancing.

The closing surprised Gillis and his friends because other sport venues in that area had been left open.

“There were all these soccer fields open, these basketball courts, all this other stuff was open, and for sports that were much more close contact,” Gillis said. “We all were just sick of it ”

He adds that his group of friends tried to skate on streets, parking lots and strip mall sidewalks, which provided their own problems. Their last resort without a park was to try the Soundview Marketplace.

“We were skating at the Soundview, and [the officials] started putting up signs that said no skateboarding was allowed,” Gillis said. “And I was like, this is dumb. We have no way to skate. So I started a petition.”

Gillis began with a Change.org petition discussing his hopes for reopening the park, and one week later, after it gained 625 signatures from fellow skaters and parents, sent it to Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth on Jan. 21, along with an emailed letter.

“Opening the park will provide an organized, safe space, where skaters like myself and scooter riders can do what we do where it’s meant to be done, instead of the open streets with moving vehicles or shopping centers with pedestrians and vehicles as well,” he wrote to Bosworth. “For many of us, the park is our outlet, a way to de-stress and deal with COVID and the related anxiety, as well as remote learning.”

The next day, Bosworth responded, but told Gillis that the park would have to remain closed.

“The decision to close the skate park was not an easy one, but was based on the judgment of our Parks Team with a focus on the safety of our residents,” the town supervisor wrote. “We will continue to monitor the situation, but as of now we feel it is still the right decision to keep the skate park closed.”

The initial response was “a little disappointing,” Gillis says, but a week later he received an email from an aide to Councilwoman Mariann Dalimonte.

“She reached out to me, and she said, Judi forwarded my email to Mariann, and then they said that she’d like to meet with me and a few of my friends at the skate park,” Gillis said.

Dalimonte then offered Gillis and his friends the opportunity to serve as ambassadors to the skate park and promote mask-wearing, social distancing and other appropriate procedures to fellow park-goers, an opportunity they took.

The skate park was originally scheduled to reopen on an early February weekend, but once the snow clears, Gillis said, the park will be back.

“We’re all really excited,” Gillis said.

For any other person his age who wants to effect similar change, Gillis suggests having a good stable of people in one’s corner.

“Have a few people on your side, and then try and grow to get a bigger team,” Gillis said. “And don’t be afraid to talk to more people and reach out to the town or officials or anyone. You can’t be afraid. You have to kind of just go for it.”

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