Eat, drink, skate in #OurNA: Could it really be that Deaf Gahan would sanction a riverfront skatepark without his personal stamp of monetization mediocrity?

What a refreshing change. It's very early in the process, but at least so far, David Duggins has not been dispatched with soon-to-be-filled satchels to annex the skatepark transformation in pursuit of a gilded plaque crediting the transformation to Jeff Gahan.

But give 'em time.

After all, in New Gahania all potentially useful ideas must be filtered through the finely tuned suburban brain of Dear Leader before coming to fruition -- and what's more, dots will need to be connected for proper campaign finance monetization prior to the parks department folding the skatepark into its fee structure.

But for now, the first giddy weeks of creative freedom. Enjoy it while it lasts.

RENOVATE, CREATE, SKATE: Group plans to transform New Albany riverfront skatepark into skate-able work of public art, by John Boyle (Hanson's No-Questions-Asked Ad Aggregator)

NEW ALBANY — A collaboration to transform New Albany's riverfront skatepark is currently in the works.

On Saturday, the Carnegie Center for Art & History hosted a brainstorming session for the community to share ideas about how the park can be improved.

"Today, we invited anyone from the community who's interested in the skatepark." said Daniel Pfalzgraf, curator at the Carnegie Center. "The park is a little old and worn down. It's been around since the '90s. We want to fix some of the things that aren't quite right with it and add new features. We want to do it in a way that's visually stimulating so people walking along the top of the flood wall will see this interesting visual piece of artwork. It's also an opportunity to come down here and engage with art, skating it and figuring out ways creative ways of navigating through the features of the space."

The plan is to transform the park into a skate-able work of public art. In order to do that, Pfalzgraf wants input from a variety of members of the surrounding community.

"We want to have kids, skaters, art students, grandparents, whoever to submit ideas of things that they think will look cool," Pfalzgraf said. "Sculptural works that can be skated, things like that. We want to have that personal buy-in to this space and the city. In 10 or 20 years, somebody can be walking by with their kids and say they helped design that."