Well, this might be the first time I've written a rebuttal or correction to one of my own posts. The decision to donate money to the Ojai Skatepark and Gavin Peters has been reversed.
Now, this decision did not result due to lack of logical support. Although I would certainly feel ethically justified to spend the money this way, perhaps not as much so from a litigious point of view. Surely, Ojai would in fact put the $1,000 to a skatepark that will happen this year or next, technically in accord with the stated VSIC goal of improving the state of skateboarding in the 805. And surely, another $1,000 would be converted to usable air conditioning for Gavin this week, in contrast to the 5-10 years it would probably take to benefit West Park. And the $500 we were going to pay Kurt to rebuild the site more efficiently...well, I'm not so sure about that yet, because it carries the prospect of raising more money for the cause.
But the bottom line is this: As much as I'll rant about the genuine lack of support from Ventura's skateboarding community (outside Five Points and a few other loyal supporters), it's that community this organization and myself personally have sworn to serve, and to disappoint them would be tantamount to pouring lemon in a badly-bleeding City-inflicted wound. I wouldn't want a single person to ever lose faith in me or my motives and say, "Well, I would donate, but you gave the last money away to Ojai..." In fact, that's the very same thing I fault Ventura for - giving Ventura's skateboarding money to some other capital improvement project.
So why the reversal? It's simple: I learned yet another bona fide maxim of political shrewdness, and that's the importance of precluding any potential argument your opponent might legitimately raise against you in the interest of personal vendetta or obfuscating the real issues. And there are more than a few people in Ventura's wine and cheese inner circle who I assume would gleefully support litigation against the Ventura Skatepark Improvement Committee and Chris Long, et al. They're the same people I referred to in yesterday's post.
So, now what?
Pay attention for our Go Skateboarding Day Fundraiser And Junk Jam, and look for the upcoming "Ventura Needs A Real Skatepark" decks at Five Points or any other place they might be sold. The first series of 100 decks will cost approximately $2,200 - but each series of 100 decks sold doubles the money in the account. By the time the first batch runs out, which I'm thinking will be quick, we'll have 4K, then 8, then maybe even 16! And when we get to that point, then we'll have enough to pay some architect $10,000 to draft a legitimate blueprint, since Ventura doesn't seem amenable to supporting its own here.
Buy one or more of these decks and you'll be supporting skateboarding through skateboarding, literally!
mos def gonna get a deck (or 2) - I hope they can accommodate chubby beer belly skaters though!
Posted by: SHORT TERM | June 10, 2008 at 12:02 PM