Pubdate: Thu, 23 Aug 2001
Source: Southern Standard, The (TN)
Copyright: 2001 Southern Standard & The Smithville Review
Contact:  http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=941
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1513
Author: Austin Cleek

IF THERE'S NO PARK, WE'LL DO DRUGS

I'm a 12-year-old student that reads your paper quite often. Well, today I 
picked up the paper to get the 411 on the new skate park. Not to my 
surprise, I found some were excited about the new pool and opposed the 
skate park. Their reason is it's too dangerous or they feel the tax 
increase is going to scare away the industry. I read the paper a lot and 
see all the drug cases that happen, and I think, "What if that was me or my 
friends that are the druggies in the paper."

Well, if you don't provide us some place to get off the streets then we 
just might be one of the druggies on the front page of the paper.

Yeah, there is a risk in skating, but with drugs we'll have more of a 
chance of getting ourselves killed. It's worth ever penny of the tax 
increase to keep the kids of McMinnville off drugs.

Austin Cleek
114 Westwood 4th Ave, McMinnville
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MAP posted-by: Beth