Community Commentary -- Jim Gray

It is hard to know where to begin on this skate park issue. There is

so much hypocrisy, misinformation, fear, ignorance and prejudice against

skateboarding, youth and anything that is considered outside of the norm.

The fact is skateboarding has been part of the norm for 20-plus years

now. There are just a lot of people who are not paying attention to what

is going on in the world around them, and it is pretty scary that these

people may be the same ones running our cities. Someone please step up

and prove me wrong.

I guess I should start by saying shame on Costa Mesa for telling their

kids they were going to build them a skate park, spend money on

architects to design it and then vote it out when a new City Council

started without even directing the recreation department to continue the

search for a better site. If they really had respect for their kids,

officially continuing the search would be the least they could have done.

I’ll be the first to agree the site originally chosen was not the best,

but that was their own fault for trying to hide their skate park rather

than embrace it.

The solution of a mobile skate park did little to solve the problem

and nothing to rebuild the kids’ confidence and trust in their city.

Next, I say shame on Newport Beach for choosing to enhance their

reprimands rather than search for a solution. Do these approaches help

our kids to build respect for our government officials, police or our

political process? I don’t think so. All I know is my 10-year-old gets pretty angry and confused as to why our cities won’t do anything while we

go to so many other cities that do. How do you tell a 10-year-old who

considers skateboarding 10 times more important than any other sport,

that their city considers mowing baseball and soccer fields that are so

rarely used more important than building him and his friends a place

(that would be used seven days a week) to do what they do? I would

appreciate a logical letter from any city council person in Costa Mesa or

Newport to my son explaining that one. I supposed I could get that

letter, but it couldn’t be logical.

I was saddened by its narrow-minded thinking, but not surprised, when

I saw a quote from Newport Beach Mayor Tod Ridgeway (“Newport Beach adds

skateboard restrictions,” Jan. 24) calling the skateboarding subculture

“a culture of defiance,” and choosing to attempt to extinguish it and

pretend that it will go away. When they constantly tell kids they are

criminals for having fun and that they are not allowed to do what they

love, yet they offer no solutions, then how could we expect the kids not

to be defiant?

It was especially interesting to me because Ridgeway’s son was on a

soccer team with my son last year. I was the assistant coach. It is

pretty ironic that the team was named after a skateboard brand, and

nearly every single kid on the team proudly road a skateboard, except

maybe his son. I never had one kid on that team ask me for an extra day

of practice, or if we could get together and kick the ball around on a

Sunday, but I did have many kids on that team come to my factory to see

how skateboards were made.

Several times, my son and I went skateboarding together with the other

coach and his son and other kids on the team. One kid on the team even

had a birthday party at Palace Park skate park in Irvine. The real point

I am trying to make is that politicians need to face the reality of what

kids are really doing and not pretend that it will disappear if they look

the other way, or that they can ignore it just because their child does

not participate.

Most kids, including mine, play soccer, baseball, basketball and other

team sports at practice and during their games, but very rarely in

between. I don’t know too many kids who play baseball every day after

baseball season is over. What many of them do every day is ride their

skateboard. That is a fact. It is not a seasonal or team sport. It is

just an addictive, enjoyable activity. I believe we’d be better off

spending half as much on promoting positive recreational addictions like

skateboarding than having to make up for it later in life by treating all

the angry, confused people who will resort to other addictions after

years of being disillusioned in their youth. We need to remember that an

ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and we reap what we sew.

I am going to be 40 this year, and since the age of 12, skateboarding

has been the only sport I do regularly, and it is the only sport done

regularly by more kids than any other in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa,

and just because our cities choose to pretend that is not true, doesn’t

make it any less of a fact. But don’t just listen to me, because, after

all, I only donate my time to coach the kids because I am a member of a

defiant subculture.

It is also ironic that in both the Jan. 24 article and March 12

Community Forum on this issue, the Daily Pilot ran photos of Pierre

Andre. No one ever mentioned that this skateboarder was a Newport Beach

bayfront homeowner and owner of a business with annual sales in the

$100-million range.

But I guess since all skateboarders are members of some defiant cult,

it would be best to leave that out, even though the kids and grandkids of

these same public officials probably have a pair of shoes made by

Pierre’s company in their closet -- they just don’t know it. I guess

ignorance is bliss.

Do our cities realize that there are three skateboard factories in

Costa Mesa producing somewhere in the range of 150,000 skateboards per

month? Aren’t we proud to know that riders from all over the world can

ride their “Made in Costa Mesa” skateboards in their skate parks while

the kids in Costa Mesa can’t? Why is it that cities like Westminster,

Brea, Fullerton, Diamond Bar, Irvine, Laguna Hills, Huntington Beach, San

Clemente, Santa Ana, Mission Viejo, Laguna Niguel and hundreds of others

nationwide have addressed this issue, but the city where the boards are

made can’t seem to get around to it? Do we actually pay more to live here

and have less progressive thinking? Please don’t make me feel like a fool

for paying more and getting less. Please prove me wrong.

I’ve heard Costa Mesa say they’d do something if Newport did and vice

versa, but we are not talking about building a hazardous waste disposal

site here. If the problem was a shortage of basketball courts, it

wouldn’t be a standoff to see who’d move first; it would be a question of

how many and where.

I wish the city officials of both cities would stop sitting on their

hands, realize they are extremely behind the times and realize that they

need to embrace the fun and creativity that skateboarding provides and

reach out and show their kids that, in the end, the political process can

work, and that our cities are paying attention to what the kids really

want.

You have some of the best talent at your disposal to help you in this

pursuit. I urge you to use them. You will be surprised at how fast the

members of the “defiant subculture” become your friends and proud

citizens, but their respect must be earned.

Please do something about this issue, so our 10-year-olds can ride a

skateboard legally and in their own city sometime before they graduate

high school.

I’d be more than happy to take anyone from either city council on a

tour of 10 great facilities within an hour of here.

I welcome any comments or criticisms to be sent to o7

[email protected] .

* Costa Mesa resident JIM GRAY has been a skateboarder since 1970 and

owns a skateboard supply factory in Costa Mesa.