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mike donelon

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SoCal Honda Dealers

Nowadays, it feels like skate culture has become synonymous with Long Beach. But it wasn't always that way.

In fact, before the year 2000, Long Beach, California, didn't have a single skate park to its name. But Mike Donelon, a former city councilman, helped change that.

In 1996, Donelon noticed more and more kids around the neighborhood picking up skateboards. But they didn't have a safe — or even legal — place to skate. Kids ended up skating on private property or the streets most of the time, which led to them being ticketed by police or getting into serious accidents.

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