Monday was a milestone day in Bowling Green as the city marked the one year anniversary of the opening of the Bowling Green Skatepark at Roland Bland Park.

The facility has been a huge success that offers a gathering place for young skating enthusiasts from our community and surrounding areas.

In the process, it took skaters off city streets and private property while providing them with a first-rate facility to pursue their passion for skateboarding, inline skating and stunt biking.

It is estimated that the 25,000-square-foot park got 65,000 visitors in the last year.

This is quite impressive. These numbers beat the city’s disc golf courses and are about the same as the Russell Sims Aquatic Center.

It is worth remembering that this park was controversial when it was initially proposed, in part due to its $750,000 price tag. Some people feared that it would be a haven for drug dealers and thieves.

But in reality, the park has been anything but. The rate of crime at the park has been well below the averages expected for other city parks and have dropped further in the last few months.

According to police officials, there have been some minor crimes reported at the park, such as cell phone thefts, a few drug use calls and some minor altercations.

A lot of people also worried that the city might face a lawsuit if a serious accident were to occur and that the local hospitals would be flooded with calls related to injuries at the park.

But this hasn’t been the case either.

In the park’s first three months, there was an average of 3.7 medical calls per month to the park. This was how many 911 calls there were, but doesn’t mean each required serious medical treatment. But over the next few months, there was an average of just one medical call a month.

It is also attracting people from surrounding counties and some people from as far away as California and Florida.

Whatever one thinks of this park and its main proponent, Commissioner Brian Nash, the numbers suggest it has been a success and a lot of the dire predictions some made about it haven’t come true.