Youths Turn Activist, Get Skate Parks

Zack Flisik and his buddies blow into the Ralphs parking lot, greeted by sneers, sighs and angry finger gestures.

They have little time before the police roll in, so the band of skateboarders quickly grind metal to the curb, “ollie” off some stairs, and buzz between cars and shoppers like flies at a picnic.

Store owners and police shoo them off the Diamond Bar streets, but they will be back. They can’t resist the sweet placement of planters and curbs, short stairways and smooth, fresh asphalt.

To get rid of them, Flisik says, the city will have to do what dozens of other California cities are already doing: lure them away with something sweeter. That’s what the freckled 13-year-old has been telling the City Council for months in his quest to build a local skate park.

Since a state law took effect at the beginning of last year reducing the liability risks in operating public skate parks, cities from San Diego to Arcata are building or planning them. By the end of this summer, 60 public skate parks are expected to be completed throughout California, up from four that existed before 1998, according to the Santa Barbara-based International Assn. of Skateboard Cos.

Flisik is part of a booming number of young skaters who are stepping into the slow, square world of City Hall seeking places to ride in the face of restrictive ordinances and a sometimes hostile public.

The movement, so street level that many of its proponents come scarred with road rash, has already generated skate park designs in communities such as San Dimas, Lynwood, Mission Viejo, Irvine, Glendale, Glendora, Brea, Cerritos, Encino, Yorba Linda, Long Beach, La Verne and Laguna Niguel.

Student Hangout

When Claremont’s skate park opened in October, it became the city’s busiest recreational facility, said Dick Guthrie, the city’s director of human services. He worked with numerous teenagers to design and build the 6,600-square-foot park, which features bowls, ramps, humps and rails. It cost $109,000 and is a hangout for students at the adjacent high school.

“The city was diligent about posting signs saying not to skate,” Guthrie said. “But it was not providing a reasonable place to skate.”

Guthrie said the youths pushed the project through the City Council and were crucial in spotting design flaws that contractors--who have never “dropped in” on a bowl or ramp--would have missed.

Purkiss Rose-RSI, a Fullerton-based park planner, is working with 48 cities to build 60 skate parks, mostly in California and Washington. Owner Steve Rose said such parks tend to leapfrog ahead of other public works projects on city agendas because they are strongly supported by police and store owners.

This summer, Los Angeles plans to begin construction of its first skate park--a 20,000-square-foot facility in Encino.

“The skateboarders came to the City Council and said, ‘Look, we don’t have a place to skateboard,’ ” said Julie Riley, a landscape architect for the Department of Recreation and Parks. “That was the impetus.”

The existing and planned construction testifies to the sheer number of skateboarders in California. Once a symbol of teenage rebellion, the sport is gliding into the mainstream, although still guided by a spirit of ragged independence.

American Sports Data estimated that in 1997 there were 8.2 million skaters nationwide with 1.1 million in California. The International Assn. of Skateboard Cos. guesses that the industry employs 18,000 people in the state. And the sport has been moving ever more inland from the beach towns that spawned “sidewalk surfing” in the 1950s.

Private skate parks became popular more than two decades ago, but declined in the mid-1980s when liability claims pushed most of them out of business.

Skateboarders were forced onto the streets, where they became adept at banking and launching off the blocky contours of common street fixtures, like a surfer uses a wave.

The phenomenon vexed pedestrians and store owners who began to see skateboarders as sidewalk marauders. Many cities have passed ordinances to ban them from sidewalks, streets, parks and school grounds.

Skateboarders decry the laws. They say they have as much right to skate as others have to play basketball. Some mouth off to police or display bumper stickers with such messages as: “Skateboarding Is Not a Crime.”

But such clashes may be pulling a 180-degree tail slide into history. A 1997 state law defined skateboarding as a hazardous recreational activity, making public entities less liable for injuries that occur on their property, officials said. Although some well-known skate havens, like Santa Cruz and Huntington Beach, had built public skate parks before, the law opened the door for cities with a more moderate following of skateboarders.

In Diamond Bar, the City Council is still debating whether there are enough skateboarders in town to warrant a park.

For Zack and his friends, the answer is obvious.

One recent afternoon, the four-member crew headed down to a Ralphs parking lot to practice. Just minutes after their hard urethane wheels cracked on the pavement and resonated in a bank office, the bank manager told them to leave. So they did.

Across the street, a sheriff’s deputy ordered them to go somewhere else. They asked where.

“Don’t talk back,” he said. “Just go.”

The youths moved on toward a post office, where they joined at least 10 other youths tearing through traffic. One woman approached to complain. They told her to get lost. She stormed away.

The group, always aware that police were close behind, returned to the Ralphs lot before finishing off its afternoon skate on the steps of a nearby church.

They complained about being persecuted, but conceded that the outlaw image gives them a little thrill.

Government Response

Zack did not flout authority like some of the others, but he did say that the process to get a skate park is too slow.

“They told us it would take 10 years,” he said. “I won’t be living here in 10 years.”

His brother, Aaron, said the City Council is run by “old people” who have no interest in listening to the youths.

But the boys’ father, who has helped them get out petitions and address the council, has been surprised by how receptive local government has been. He said it has taught him and his three sons about how cities work and how citizens can get things done.

“Frankly, I’d never been to a City Council meeting before,” said Keith Flisik.

In Claremont, Nik Westman worked for three years to get a city skate park. He and his friends spoke at City Hall, collected hundreds of signatures and raised $25,000. They worked with Dick Guthrie to design the park and were out every day, helping to build it.

“If we weren’t there, it would have been terrible,” he said. A lump in the concrete, a misplaced rail or transition would have sent skaters elsewhere, he said.

In Glendora, the city is still working out the cost and location of its proposed skate facility. The council has supported the park but some worry about the noise and the “element” that would use it, said Jim Henderson, director of community services.

“Unfortunately everyone sees these kids with baggy pants and stereotypes them,” he said. “But that’s just what they wear now.”

Truly, he added, the project will most benefit the rest of the city by keeping skaters out of the way.

“We need the skate park more than the kids do,” he said. “They’re fine. They’re skating whether it’s illegal or not.”