Taking on City Hall, Board in Hand

More than two years ago, a group of teenagers in Hermosa Beach began an initiative to get a skateboard park built in the city because they had no place to practice their wild tricks. Last month the City Council approved a final design for the 7,700-square-foot site, which includes a quarter-pipe ramp, railings, stairs and pyramids. The park will be the first skateboard park in the South Bay. Construction is scheduled to begin later this summer and the park will open in the fall. One of the teenagers who launched the skate park effort and saw it through to the end discussed the experience with TRACY JOHNSON.

*

MIKE SLIFF

16, junior, Redondo Union High School

It started one day when me and my friend Kelly Ress were down in Hermosa and we were skating. The police were harassing us about it and we said, “Where can we go? We don’t have a skate park or anything around here.”

The cop said, “Well, why don’t you do something about that?” And we thought, “Whoa, that’s kind of a good idea.” So we started thinking about different ways to get a skate park in Hermosa.

At first we thought it was going to be impossible, like, how are two kids--two teenagers--going to be able to get a skate park in Hermosa Beach? Then we talked to Mary Rooney [community services director] and she helped a lot.

She put us on the agenda one night and told us to bring a bunch of friends. The first time we were on the agenda we messed up because we thought we were supposed to come Wednesday, but it was Thursday.

But we went the next week and we got about five of our friends and a pro skater to come and we basically told them what was on our minds. We told them that we were tired of being harassed by police telling us where we can’t skate. We also told them that we thought that a skate park would solve the problem.

They took it under consideration and started having meetings about it. We started a petition to support the skate park and got more than 500 people to sign it. Some of the people were skaters and some of them were like, “If I sign this, will it stop you from skating in front of my house?” We told them, “Yes,” and they signed it.

They kept having meetings and calling us to ask what we wanted and how big it should be and where it should be and then they started looking at places. They decided to build at the Community Center, which is cool ‘cause it’s the heart of the city. Then they hired the architect.

It was a really long process. We would come up with a good idea and then they would sit and think about that good idea for a month. Then they would hold another meeting and then we would go back and talk more.

I’m really pleased with the fact that it happened because I never would have expected this. I thought they would just think we were a bunch of punk kids trying to get our way, but they listened to us.

The process taught me that everything takes a lot of time and planning. Another thing that pleased me a lot is that I thought that if there was ever a chance that this would happen, all the decisions would be made by them and the park would not be very good because they didn’t skate.

The whole thing shows that even if you’re a kid, you can make a difference. Even if we had gotten to a place where the city took it over, I still would be able to say me and my friends had a part in this. It’s better to be a part of something than nothing.