In skateboarding there is a concept known as grit, in that learning the sport teaches perseverance and determination, how to succeed and fail. To never give up until a trick is mastered. Alex White, a Pacific Grove mom, knows what it is to have grit. The YouTube video, “Little Girl Skater Gets Tackled by Security Guard,” taken when White was around 15, has been viewed over 1.7 million times. It shows a guard in Portola Plaza knocking her and her board to the cement and detaining her on Olivier Street behind the Portola Hotel. She got off with a warning from Monterey Police.
White went on to a career as a professional skateboarder and now works as the global brand manager for Krux Trucks, a skateboard parts manufacturer, and is the Women’s and Non-Binary Rider Relations Manager for Santa Cruz-based NHS, Inc., the largest skateboard manufacturer in the world. She has worked as a commentator for Olympic skateboarding and other competitions, as well as served as a judge at events around the globe.
At home with sons Henry, 11, and Billy, 7, she and two fellow P.G. residents, Emily Haselbauer and Kelsea Richmond, under the banner of the Pacific Grove Skatepark Project, are persevering in one of the toughest competitions in town deserving of all the grit they can master: winning approval of a skatepark location.
They received guidance from the Skateboard Project of the Tony Hawk Foundation, which instructed them on how to lobby for American Rescue Plan Act funds. Earlier this year, they managed to convince the P.G. City Council to carve out $158,000 in initial funding for planning and site location. The council told supporters they would have to fundraise for construction costs, estimated at over $500,000.
At a council meeting Aug. 17, children, teens and parents spoke for more than an hour detailing why a skatepark was important to them as a place not just to hang out, but to exercise, build community and learn important life lessons, including grit. “The kids are our secret weapon,” White says.
A week later, on Aug. 25, the city’s Recreation Board met to consider potential locations for a roughly 10,000-square-foot skatepark. City staff recommended George Washington Park (at the corner of Sinex Avenue and Alder Street) as the preferred location. Other possibilities included a gravel lot owned by the P.G. Unified School District behind P.G. High School, and Arnett Park on Piedmont Avenue.
A city report suggesting as many as 25 trees would have to be removed – highly unlikely since the recommended plot has few live trees – spurred numerous people to protest the location. Volunteers who maintain the wooded portion of George Washington Park were adamant the skatepark should be located elsewhere.
The Rec Board voted 4-1 to direct staff to continue to pursue G.W. Park, while simultaneously looking at Arnett Park as a secondary location, as well as entering into formal discussions with PGUSD administrators.
“George Washington is the opportunity to do it right,” White says.