HOLLAND (WHTC-AM/FM) — Smallenburg’s skate park in Holland is closed, but you wouldn’t know it from the cluster of skaters and watchful adults standing inside the fenced area just before 7 p.m. Sunday, May 24, 2020.
While none of the city’s parks closed during the pandemic, some of the activities and amenities were made off-limits for public use, Holland Parks and Recreation Director Andy Kenyon told WHTC.
Those off-limits amenities include Smallenburg’s skate park, along with the city’s basketball courts and tennis/pickleball courts, “however people keep bending the fences, removing sections of fencing, and climbing over them…it’s been a struggle,” Kenyon wrote in an email to WHTC on Tuesday, May 26, 2020.
“I am hoping to get some direction soon from Lansing on when these areas in our parks can get opened up,” he added. “I know people want to get out and use these spaces, and it kills us having to have them closed right now-especially with the weather as nice as it is. Playgrounds are also on the closed list at all of our parks.”
Other areas of Holland’s parks are open and operational, he wrote: “Lots of trails to explore, and green spaces to kick a ball around or play catch.”
He said the good news about the damage to fences and gates is that city workers have been able to repair them on an in-house basis, so the cost to fix the damage has “been on the cheaper end,” he said, estimating the city has had to spend “a few hundred dollars of time and materials.”
