Windham needs a community park. The town has no place where a wide variety of people can come together, meet one another and feel part of their community. It sorely needs this community gathering place, and thankfully there’s an effort underway to bring such a feature to the town.

The Windham Town Council will soon be discussing the possibility of building such a park near the Windham Public Safety Building on Route 202. It is a great idea and one that Windhamites – who, like many Mainers, enjoy activities where they can socialize outdoors – should support.

Yes, we have the schools, but that’s for the kids. We have several beautiful preserves within town offering miles of trails, but there’s not much chance for socializing. We have many churches and clubs but those are for folks who feel comfortable in those environments. There’s no one place where everyone can congregate.

The park, which would offer a range of recreational and cultural offerings, is planned for a central location near the schools on Gray Road. It would feature a walking path, a dog park and a pavilion that would be used for musical and theatrical performances in summer and possibly ice skating in the winter. There would also be an open play area where parents of small children could play with their kids and meet other families. There would be a BMX dirt-bike racing track that would give the bigger kids a good work-out and place to show off for their parents.

It would be nice, however, if park designers would forego the idea of building two basketball courts. We already have so many basketball courts. Each of the schools is filled with them, both inside and out.

The reasone we need a community park is simple: community. Every successful town or city has a place where people of all ages, genders and interests can brush shoulders.

While the park would offer several activities, the dog park is a good example of a “third place” where people can hang out and potentially meet others with the same interests. (Third places traditionally are cafes, churches, bars – informal locales where it’s all right to go up to a stranger and say hello.) Imagine the many folks who would be better off knowing a dog park was down the road where they would have an excuse to socialize with others as their dog played. There’s such a park on St. John Street in Portland. It serves a purpose much greater than bringing dogs together – bringing people together. A community park, especially one that can host performances on a warm summer’s night, would be a real plus for those who feel disengaged with their fellow Windhamites.

Those who say a park is not worth our tax dollars are right in saying the park won’t bring tangible benefits. Taxes, they say, should pay for needs, not wants. It’s true a community park isn’t needed. But it’s one of those community bright spots that would make Windham a better place. Not everyone has a big yard or lots of money to spend on their hobbies. A community park, especially one with the kind of features designers want to incorporate, is an expenditure well worth our tax money.

-John Balentine, editor