Mayor Fischer meets with Local Extreme Skaters

Late yesterday afternoon, Sister Cities and 7 local Extreme Skaters and BMX riders stopped by Mayor Fischer's office. The group was about to leave for Louisville's Sister City of Perm, Russia for the opening of Russia's first Extreme Park-modelled on non other than Louisville's own extreme park blueprints (handed over several years ago during a visit from Perm's Mayor Shubin). Mayor Fischer wanted to give them an official send off; we were expecting a quick handshake, photo and "do Louisville proud" speach but what we got was entirely different....



Mayor Fischer showed a genuine interest, asking about the local Skate Park, what it needed and what could improve it. The group offered serious suggestions and recommendations and sited several local Skate shops as the unofficial representatives of the local Skate community. Two main concerns - shade and graphitti stood out (along with a lack of recycling bins) and the group had several great suggestions to tackle these issues.





Local politics may not have been a talking point down at the skate park but Mayor Fischer may have just changed that. Listening to constituents is something most good polititians try to do but showing a genuine interest and engaging individuals on the things that matter most to them is priceless and yesterday Mayor Fischer showed this group that they matter. At least to me, it seemed as though they left Metro Hall with perhaps a different view of our new Mayor than when they walked in 45 minutes earlier. Who knows, maybe we can look to the skate park for one of our future city leaders!