City parks can be broken down into two categories – playgrounds and athletic fields.

That’s great for the younger kids who enjoy the playground’s swings and slides and the older kids who enjoy baseball, softball and soccer.

But, one group is generally left out of the mix, teenagers who don’t participate in team sports but instead are into the so-called “extreme sports” like skateboarding.

Those kids often have no place to call their own. Instead, they are forced to skate in public areas that weren’t intended for it, raising the ire of some residents and the police, who have made it illegal to skate in some parts of downtown.

That’s why Monday’s groundbreaking for Westbrook’s new skateboard park at Bicentennial Park is a good sign. For the first time, the city is doing something specifically for its teenagers, even to the point of soliciting their help with the park’s design.

Some residents have noted the lack of a place for teens to skate, and they resolved to do something about it. “A lot of young people are not active in sports in school,” said Westbrook resident Kathy Poirier, who has been vocal about building a skate park for about 10 years. “This is their own thing – they feel confident about it,” she said. “They deserve a chance to do what they do.”

Poirier is right, the kids need a place to “do what they do.” There has been a lot of talk in the news over the past few years about obese children and teenagers, and how kids need to get away from TV and video games and get out and exercise more.

For some kids that’s easy, they can go out and play traditional sports and get their exercise that way. But that attitude overlooks an entirely different group of kids. Those kids are the ones who have no interest in joining a team, but love to go out and skate. This new park gives them a great opportunity to go out and get some exercise doing something they enjoy.

The city also deserves credit for managing to get this project done without using any money from property taxes. The park will be built with donated labor and services and money contributed from several sources.

“There are no property tax dollars going into this project at all,” said Westbrook City Administrator Jerre Bryant.

While this park will be a benefit to Westbrook, it’s important to look for other ways to pay for extras like this park without increasing the burden on taxpayers. This project will demonstrate to future mayors and city councilors how that can be accomplished with the help of the local business community.

Thanks to the generosity of local companies like White Brothers, Pike Industries, E.A. Burns’ Fencing, Flannery Properties and Hannaford, Westbrook was able to do just that and soon, kids will have a place of their own to skate.

One last note of caution, however. At Monday night’s City Council meeting, City Council President Brendan Rielly joked that he wanted to see Mayor Bruce Chuluda take a ceremonial ride at the park’s ribbon cutting later this summer.

As much as we would like to see that potentially classic front page photo, we must strongly urge Chuluda not give in to temptation and stay off the skateboards.

Leave the skateboarding to the kids, Mr. Mayor. After all, it’s their park.

Mike Higgins, assistant editor