Putnam Valley Man Looks to Bring Skate Park to Town
A Putnam Valley man is fighting to build an elaborate skate park in Putnam Valley and believes offering the additional recreational opportunities could be the key to stopping drug use among the town’s youths.
Doug Greenwich said he began pushing for the skate park after he lost his 21-year-old son, Chris, to a heroin overdose in June.
“Kids in this town need somewhere to go, somewhere to release their energy other than drugs,” Greenwich told the Putnam Valley Town Board at a meeting earlier this month. “It would make a perfect area for a California type skate park.”
Greenwich has been in touch with the Tony Hawk Foundation about building the park, and is now trying to collect signatures to petition town officials.
“We’ve been going around now collecting signatures in the last week, just going door to door,” Greenwich, who said he was told by officials in the town’s Parks and Recreation Department to collect 500 signatures, told The Putnam Examiner. “It’s a long process now, but this is the process we need to do.”
Greenwich believes the park can be built where the town’s hockey rink now stands. Greenwich has been joined in his efforts by his daughter, Alyssa, as well as some of Chris’s friends.
“Since my brother passed away, with the whole drug problem in this town, we thought we needed something to keep kids busy, so me and my dad just started the project,” Alyssa said. “A lot of kids find entertainment in doing drugs.”
Katy Gigleo, who was Chris’s girlfriend, said drug use is a major problem in the town and believes more recreational opportunities would make a difference.
“It’s destroying so many people’s lives. It’s killing all my friends. I really think the skate park would help,” Gigleo said. “I think it would give kids something to do.”
Putnam County Sheriff Don Smith said while demand for heroin is more common among an older population, some youths may be using the drug.
“I would tell you that I am always concerned about drugs,” Smith told The Putnam Examiner. “I am especially concerned about protecting our most precious resource, the young people in Putnam County. Drugs are not just a problem in Putnam County, they’re really a problem across the country.”
Smith said the sheriff’s office has been battling drug use by infiltrating the supply and stopping drugs from coming into the county. He added a crackdown on prescription drugs, though, might push a few people to use harder drugs instead.
Putnam Valley Parks and Recreation Director Frank DiMarco said talk of building the skate park is still premature.
