Non profit for a local skate park

PVNews article March 6, 2014 ‘Kids need a safe place to skate’ by Mary Scott

Skateboarders grind rails and curbs in local shopping centers and on school campuses. When security guards and custodians kick them off those properties, they hit the streets. That’s where they are stopped by law enforcement. But this doesn’t deter them. Skateboarders want to skate, need to skate, but there is no safe place for them.

“We live in a Camelot setting with huge homes and a lot of open space. We have four golf courses and many thousands of acres, 13.4 square miles here. We have no legal place to skateboard. It’s [time that] we have a skate facility here,” said Jim Parker, vice president of Skatepark PV.

Skatepark formed more than 4 ½ years ago to raise funds to build a skateboard park in Palos Verdes. The group has the money and a conceptual plan, all they need is a location – again.

The group’s supporters filled the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council chamber Tuesday night seeking the elected officials’ help. The group sought a location in the city of RPV before the city of Rolling Hills Estates approved the allocation of a plot in Ernie Howlett Park. Shortly after RHE’s approval in June 2012, RPV suspended its search for a location within its boundaries. However, after a soil test showed the land, which sits on a portion of the closed Palos Verdes Landfill, to be unsuitable to build on, Skatepark PV pulled out last year. That was the only location RHE could offer.

Skatepark PV has been relatively quiet since then, but they resurfaced Tuesday night in front of RPV council en masse.

Skatepark PV has long had the support of former RHE City Council woman Susan Seamans. Now the group has the support of PV native and world-renowned professional surfer Alex Gray, who is also an avid skateboarder.

Palos Verdes cities provide facilities for other “accepted” sports like football, soccer, baseball and basketball, Gray said. “They are given fields that they put their feet on and are allowed to pursue a childhood dream,” he added. “These kids put their feet on a skateboard and the cops are called. … I think as a community we need to look at our youth and give them every chance that we can.”

While the Palos Verdes provides a world-class education, Gray said, that education does not prepare them for the realities of life.

“Peer pressure, curiosity [and] not knowing when the fun ends are things that come to my mind when I look at these young kids,” he told council members. “The reason that comes to mind is my fun came to an end when my brother died of a drug overdose in a house not a half a mile away from here.”

Skateboarding helped Gray through his family’s tragedy, and skateboarding offers local kids a positive outlet to relieve peer and academic pressures.

“Every one of these boys and girls, when they get on their skateboards their problems go away after they get to roll down the street,” he said.

Kids in Palos Verdes are under a lot of stress, said Gray’s mother, Laurie Gray.

“We live in a very goal-oriented community,” she said. “We have very successful students and we do a great job educating the kids. … I’m about the emotional well-being of our kids. They’re precious. And they need a place to go after school that’s safe.”

Skatepark PV would like to see RPV put a skate park back on the agenda and re-open the discussion.