Proposal

for a locally focused youth activity center in Fowlerville, Michigan

for skateboarding, inline skating and BMX.

image below: Meijer Skate Park in Brighton

I. An activity center for the urban sports in Fowlerville—a general description.

II. Who we are.

a. David Weimer, Fowlerville ‘native.’

b. Andrée Weimer, new Fowlerville resident from France.

c. Our family.

III. Our objective.

a. Building something concrete.

b. Encouraging and supporting local practitioners of the urban sports.

IV. Our two proposals.

a. Construction of a skate park and dirt trails in Fowlerville.

b. Grass roots construction of a skate park and dirt trails in Fowlerville.

V. Why Fowlerville? Why now?

VI. What we’ve done.

I. An activity center for the urban sports in Fowlerville—a general description.

The idea is simple. To involve local practitioners of skateboard, inline skating, and BMX in the planning, design, construction and use of an activity center for the urban sports. Specifically, a skate park with modules constructed by David Weimer and a team of builders and designers who will work closely with interested local skateboarders, BMX riders and skaters.

This skate park will be designed for each of the three principal disciplines of the urban sports. It will be designed to offer a place where growth of skill levels is possible—both through physical design and lessons that will be offered by skilled practitioners.

In addition, a series of dirt trails will be constructed for BMX riders to practice their skills. These dirt trails will be planned and built with the cooperation between David and local, inspired practitioners of BMX freestyle. The trails will offer something for the beginner, novice and advanced BMX rider.

This activity location should be conveniently located for residents of Fowlerville and the surrounding community to visit without having to walk, skateboard or ride along roads. It should be easily accessible, located in a non-residential part of town and not lighted at night. It should have a simple security fence around it (for loose skateboards, etc.).

It can be constructed on the site of any existing, unused parking space or paved area of approximately 7,200 sq. ft. (of any shape) with an equal amount of unpaved space for dirt trails.

The shape is not fixed. Plans can be easily adapted to different shapes such as a pre-existing L-shaped area, a large rectangular area or something long and narrow. A basic shape for the skate park area is 120’ x 60’.

Three main points of this proposed activity area are:

· Local practitioners and enthusiasts of the urban sports will have a place where they can take pride in improving their skills, organize events that are interesting for them, and continuously improve upon the equipment, dirt trails and other physical structures—in short, they will have a place for them.

· No longer will skateboarders or BMX riders seek to advance their skills on municipal picnic tables, benches or the steps of businesses. They will have a much better place to go. Fowlerville’s youth will be happy to have a place to go with something to do, and other residents will be happy to have order and peace.

· This proposed activity center with modules, dirt trails and regular events, will be cared for, in the long term, by dedicated people living in Fowlerville—namely us—and each local practitioner will benefit from the creation of such a haven.

II. Who we are.

a. David W. Weimer, Fowlerville ‘native.’

My family moved to a home on South Fowlerville Road when I was in the 9^th grade. I am 35. I am the oldest of three. My brother lives in Iceland, my sister lives in Cookeville, Tennessee and my mother lives with her husband in Rochester Hills. My father is buried in the Fowlerville cemetery—he died in the summer of 1985 in a swimming accident in Marquette.

·I graduated from Fowlerville High School in 1985. I entered the Army, and was stationed in Fliegerhorst Kaserne, near Frankfurt, Germany for a two-year enlistment. Afterwards, I served in the Florida and Pennsylvania Army National Guard for 10 years.

·In 1986, while in the Army, I visited my French pen pal in Rennes, France. A year later, she had moved to Berlin and I returned to the U.S. where I found work as a land surveyor in Lake City, Florida.

·In 1991, I graduated from Lake City Community College with an Associate of Arts Degree. In 1994, I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a Bachelor of Arts degree. I worked as a newspaper reporter and carpenter while living in Pittsburgh.

·In 1996, I started inline skating in Pittsburgh—an average of 20 miles a day. I went from absolute beginner to going down stairs, jumping, and cruising at 35 miles-per-hour.

·In 1998, I enrolled in the University of Memphis' Department of English teaching assistantship program.

·In 1999, I visited Andrée, my long-time pen pal, in Stuttgart, Germany. Second chances don't come along often. We decided to get married. So I moved to Germany.

·We were married in the spring of 2000 and our son, Guillaume, came along at the end of the year. I learned about my country and myself by living in another country. Some things you can only see from far away. I taught English in Stuttgart. I worked for an office furniture handler as a warehouse manager. By the time we moved to France, I could speak and write German simply.

·In October of 2001, Andrée, Guillaume, two cats and I moved to Southern France near Toulouse, to pursue our dream of creating a skate park and family activity center.

·In December of 2002, we moved to my hometown of Fowlerville. We had constructed a very good skate park in the French town of Saint-Lys.

b. Andrée (Lepérou) Weimer, new Fowlerville resident from France.

I grew up in Rennes, France. It is the capitol city of Bretagne (Brittany). I am 34. I have always liked taking care of people. I learned to inline skate with David near the Stuttgart Flughafen (airport) in Germany. I am the youngest of three children. My brother lives in Rennes, my sister lives in Saint Malo, my father and stepmother live in a southeast suburb of Paris and my mother lives in Rennes.

·I graduated from Lycee Chateaubriand in Rennes in 1986. I am fluent in German, English and French. I can communicate in Spanish and I like learning Italian. I enjoy traveling and meeting people. When I was growing up in Bretagne, on the west coast of France, I loved going to my grandmother's house on the ocean.

·In my life, I have driven across Africa with a friend in a Rover, slept in castles in Scotland, camped across Europe and America, and visited Victoria Island, Canada. My favorite place to live is America.

·I left Rennes in 1986 to be an au pair mädchen (nanny) for a family in Berlin. I didn't speak any German at the time. I learned German watching "Sesame Strasse" (Sesame Street) with a three-year-old girl I was taking care of. I lived in Berlin eight years. I was there when the wall was standing and I watched it fall. I have lifelong friends in Berlin and warm memories of my time there.

·In 1992, I graduated from the Techniche Fachhochschule Berlin with a degree in computer programming (Diplom-Informatikerin). In 1994, I moved to Stuttgart, in southwest Germany to work as a computer programming consultant for CSC Ploenzke, and eventually, to be a software teacher for IBM in Germany and Switzerland.

·I learned about the "professional world" in Stuttgart. I made good friends and I learned a great deal about France! I made travel arrangements for my German colleagues and I decided that I should read something about the history of Bretagne.

·In August 1999, my American pen pal, David, flew from Memphis, Tennessee, to visit me on the same day of the solar eclipse. We had been writing to each other for 19 years. We were almost married while he was in the Army.

·We were finally married in April 2000, in Sparta, Tennessee. Our son, Guillaume, was born October 15th, 2000, in Filderstadt, Germany. The next year, I resigned from my position as software test manager for Allianz in Stuttgart.

·On October 13th, 2001, David and I drove to Toulouse, France with our son and two American cats to open a parc de loisir! And now, we’re in Fowlerville!

c. Our family.

Andrée, David and Guillaume (William in French) Weimer. We decided to pursue our dreams—building an activity center by practitioners, for practitioners (David’s dream) and taking care of people and making them feel good (Andrée’s dream). We want to be able to say, “We did it!!” Guillaume will entertain his international visitors (his French family and German godparents) and he’ll have the opportunity of being what he wants to be when he grows up…

III. Our objective.

a. Building something concrete.

Actually organizing, overseeing all aspects of, and physically carrying out the construction of an activity location for urban sports. This includes dirt trails, modules (such as ramps, funboxes, grinding rails, inclined planes, etc.) and a security fence.

Anything we build will comply with the normalization requirements for public usage skate park equipment. We commit ourselves to the long-term and regular maintenance, care and improvement of the physical structure of this activity location.

b. Encouraging and supporting local practitioners of the urban sports.

We will invite and encourage participation of local skateboarders, BMX riders and inline skaters in this project. If a skateboarder, for example, is inspired to design skate parks, we will allow him or her to become involved. We know the importance of constructing something solidly. We also believe in creating something that people want.

We will organize planning meetings where local practitioners will be invited to take part in reviewing our designs. Their input will be incorporated into the final form of the center. We will take no unilateral actions; the Fowlerville City Council will approve every aspect of this endeavor.

A thing survives as long as it lives. We propose to become the representatives of urban sports practitioners in Fowlerville and its surrounding community. If, for example, a demonstration of graffiti were proposed, we would assist in organizing and gaining permission. If a skateboard competition is proposed, we will assist in organizing it—again, as a go-between for practitioners and the city government. We would function basically in an advisory capacity. We would also oversee activities such as lessons for BMX riding techniques and lessons in skateboard tricks and inline techniques.

This activity center would not only give urban sports enthusiasts something to do; it would promote responsibility and pride in accomplishment. We have discovered that our greatest successes have come when we made it possible for young people to do what they dream.

IV. Our two proposals.

a. Construction of a skate park and dirt trails in Fowlerville.

We propose to build in the town of Fowlerville, a free and public skate park designed for the three principal urban sports—BMX, skateboard and inline skating. This skate park will offer something for each of the disciplines. It will be planned with beginners, novices and advanced practitioners in mind. By design, such a skate park will ‘organize’ the different disciplines and promote a safe environment. Skateboarders will generally prefer this area, inline skaters another, etc.—because of the design and placement of the equipment.

From our work in France, we have assembled a ‘team’ of designer and builders. We will bring them to Fowlerville to build the skate park over a period of two weeks, working with volunteers from Fowlerville’s large skateboarding, BMX riding and inline skating population. The designer and builders from France are members of our non-profit organization, Dream Extreme, which was created to promote the urban sports.

An important addition to this skate park is a series of dirt trails for BMX riders and possibly even mountain boarding and all-terrain inline skating. We have seen these disciplines utilizing dirt trails. We propose to plan (involving practitioners directly in all aspects of this project) and construct a series of dirt trails that offer a challenge to riders of differing skill levels. Three ‘runs’ will be constructed immediately adjacent to the skate park, each aimed at a different skill level. The trails will be constructed over several weeks using clay-based fill dirt acquired by the city. Give us dirt, and we’ll do the rest.

In France, our association, in cooperation with countless volunteers, built a skate park without dirt trails in Saint-Lys, France, on a new concrete surface 120’ x 60’. The cost was 20,000 Euro. We think we can do the same in Fowlerville. We have the experience, the tools, the desire and the time. The dirt trails would not be an additional ‘cost.’ They are a part of the planned activity center.

In short: Our goal is to build something for the local enthusiasts of BMX, skateboard and inline skating—now. We want to build an activity center for urban sports in Fowlerville this year. We have a team assembled (David and Andrée, with Fabien Koudoyor, our designer and Frank Fleouter, our principal builder), and we have the experience and ability to organize a project that directly involves local practitioners of the urban sports. We would like to build a skate park in a non-residential part of Fowlerville, on an already-existing paved surface, of variable shape, but approximately 7,200 sq. ft. paved. We would like to construct, on another approximately 7,200 sq. ft. of unpaved surface, a system of dirt trails for BMX. The precise cost will depend on the city’s commitment to this project, but we have done something similar in France for about 20,000 dollars.

b. Grass roots construction of a skate park and dirt trails in Fowlerville.

In our experience, we have found that often a town may be unwilling or unable to spend money on a skate park for local urban sports enthusiasts. It is both a new idea and not a priority in the minds of all people. Yet, where there is a will, there’s a way. We propose creating something in Fowlerville; if the leaders of this community are receptive, there is more than one way to make this happen.

It is possible to organize, working with the youth of Fowlerville, the construction of smaller, movable skate park modules. These are fixed to the asphalt or concrete surface, but they can be periodically repositioned. We can build a basic skate park and add to it regularly, over time, organizing seminars to teach willing urban sports enthusiasts how to build these things. This skate park can even be disassembled and stored during the winter.

We would require the cost of materials and the approval of the township, and for dirt trails construction, a certain quantity of clay-based dirt, shovels, rakes and a wheelbarrow or two are required. Volunteers are never a problem, and we are committed to this project.

In short: depending on the City of Fowlerville’s level of commitment, the scale of a proposed urban sports activity center can be greater or lesser initially. We are prepared to match your level of commitment with an appropriate plan and proposal.

V. Why Fowlerville? Why now?

While in France, Andrée and I decided, for the good of our family, to return to the U.S. It was difficult. Our dream, such as it was becoming in France, was halted, and, to the best of our ability, we fulfilled our commitment to the urban sports enthusiasts who believed in our commitment to create something real for them by building a skate park in Saint-Lys.

Since December, we have been settling in to our new lives in Fowlerville. Now we want to do something.

Fowlerville has a large number of skateboarders and BMX riders. They have nowhere to practice their sports. I am an inline skating enthusiast. I drive to Novi, Brighton and East Lansing. I desperately want to do what I am capable of doing—building something in Fowlerville for others and myself! I am reminded daily as I drive through town that there are kids who would go crazy if they only knew what could be, here, in their very own town.

The least I could do is my best to make this happen. Andrée, through her church friends, French students and French conversation circle participants, has found that her desire to take care of people and make them feel good has an excellent chance to take root in Fowlerville.

This is our home. We will raise our son here, and we want to bring what we have to offer: to do something useful.

VI. What we’ve done.

Please visit the “project status” link on our website, www.oneandonlyskatepark.com. Here, you can read how we organized a coalition made up of extreme sports associations and individual practitioners. There are photos, articles and more. We met with town leaders, business professionals, skateboarders and graffiti artists—among many others. We built the best wooden public skate park in the region of Haute Garonne, in a town called Saint Lys, near Toulouse in Southern France. We were featured in newspapers, magazines and online newsletters, on television and at events.

We committed ourselves to our dream of creating a family activity center that would be like no other—one devoted and dedicated to the practitioners of the urban sports and their families.

We have experience organizing construction of skate parks and events. We know the importance of involving enthusiasts directly in a project. We have experience talking to people like YOU, the leaders of this community. And more importantly, we know how to dream.