How to Fight for a Skatepark

2008 How to Fight for a Skatepark - By Todd Taylor with additioanl photos by Mary Clare Stevens: Posted 5-28-08
Reprinted with permission from Razorcake Magazine #41
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The Politics of Concrete

I've never enjoyed anxious crowds, getting hit with flying objects, or cops, so going to large political protests has never been high on my priorities. Yet, I consider myself politically active and informed.

Years back, Sean Carswell and I interviewed the historian Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States. Zinn reaffirmed what I'd been thinking for a long time: political resistance can be personal journey and it can take many forms. It's not only the cocked arm ready to throw a Molotov through a window. It can equally be a writer, collecting the stories of the disenfranchised and threading them together into a varied banner of dissent.

It's been said that citizens can flex most of their political muscle locally. I have a lot of pride for where I live, Highland Park, Northeast Los Angeles. It's like a small town surrounded by a big city. I don't want to "improve" it, in the gentrificational, douchebaggish, SUV, guzzle-a-latte, hundred dollar shoe boutique, beers-over-five-dollars- in-a-bar sense. I wanted to attempt to improve it in a civic way.

There's a kid downstairs. He's a bit of a butt-munch and he's spent many a three-hour session of bouncing a rubber ball against the other side of the wall where I work. He's a pretty typical kid for the area: shiftless, cranky, bored, and raised on TV. Although he annoys me, he's emblematic of the reason I wanted to help get a quality skatepark made in my neighborhood.

I'd be a liar if I said that I only fought for a skatepark here on lofty principle. I wanted something I'd have fun skating, something to invite my friends to, something challenging. I wanted to fight for something that would improve, if even by a small degree, the quality of life for the folks who live around me. It was a fight for something as real as concrete.

Geography Lesson

Los Angeles is like the fall of Rome, but instead of lead pipes, it's bureaucracy. Three and a half years ago, I caught wind that there was a skatepark proposed two blocks away from my apartment. Immediately, visions of Dreamland and Grindline-two of the most highly regarded skatepark builders in the U.S.-danced in my head like dual concrete snake runs.

Los Angeles County is not Washington, Oregon, or Idaho; it isn't even like the rest of California. It believes it's its own country. It's the most populous county in the United States-over ten million documented folks-yet it can't compete with cities that border it in terms of skateparks. In February of 2004, it had one marginal concrete skatepark, Pedlow. What was working beyond city lines didn't matter. To the bureaucrats, anywhere else might as well be Mars or Tijuana.

My friend -The Ambassador- and I walked over to our first meeting in the local middle school classrooms across the street. The event was called Skate Summit and the question proposed was: "Does Highland Park want a skatepark?" It seemed like a rhetorical enough question. In the ten block radius of the school, I'd estimate that there are over one hundred skaters, most of whom have never skated anywhere except the street: in traffic, in parking lots, in front of houses and stores. The kids at the meeting ranged from wary to mildly hostile throughout the morning. When something was said they agreed to, they wagged their decks over their heads. Otherwise, they largely acted disinterested, like they'd seen this song and dance before. Basically, they acted how kids usually behave when they find themselves in school on a Saturday.

Lull Them Asleep
City Technique #1

I should note that when I mention "The City," it's a collection of all The City of Los Angeles branches: Recreation and Parks, Department of Engineering, Council District 14, Office of the Mayor, the list goes on. They can move in a herd or in small groups, but very rarely alone.

The Summit was a meeting open to the entire community. Whoever says that skating's no longer considered dangerous should spend a morning with ordinary "concerned citizens" during the skatepark proposal process because, deep in their hearts when it may hit close to their property values, skateboarding equates with drug-using, satan-worshiping, graffiti-happy gang bangers. (Drug use was repeatedly cited as the reason why there could never be a bowl at the skatepark. Way too easy to rip some bingers down there, out of sight from the cops.)

The Summit continued with a slide show by a veteran graffiti artist. Although the dude's skulls were cool and his stuff was well received, I didn't quite grasp what he had to do with skating. In the meetings to come, there were often weird curveballs in an attempt to bro down with the kids. Near the end, there was a question-and-answer session. A well-meaning lady suggested art projects at the skatepark: "A place for kids to take apart their boards and paint their decks!" There was polite applause from the adults and snickering from anyone who skated.

I signed up to be on the "community design committee" list that was passed around. The City would never use that list. We were about to find out that The City already had their plan. The meeting was mostly playacting, a tick in a column on a spreadsheet: "Community wants skatepark!"

It ended with a homeless guy yelling about wanting restrooms in the park. The dude had a point. If you don't play in a Little League, who controls access to the john, there's no polite way to huck a whiz in the area.

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