By Bruce Karnick [email protected] Vandalism at Lions Park over the weekend brings to light a larger problem facing Hastings: wasted time and money cleaning up after teens or other perpetrators …
This item is available in full to subscribers.
To continue reading, you will need to either log in, using the login form, below, or purchase a new subscription.
If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account and connect your subscription to it by clicking here.
Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.
Please log in to continue |
By Bruce Karnick
Vandalism at Lions Park over the weekend brings to light a larger problem facing Hastings: wasted time and money cleaning up after teens or other perpetrators damage property.
The cleanup is cumbersome, and it costs taxpayers money.
According to Parks Maintenance Supervisor Cory Likes, he and his staff are spending hours each week cleaning up vandalism all summer long.
“I bet we spend at least $5,000 a summer, including 5–10-man hours a week cleaning up this kind of stuff,” Likes said while assessing the damage at Lions Park Monday morning.
That $5,000 dollar estimate was quick math in his head, and he noted that could be significantly higher if he were to sit down and research everything they had to clean up last year.
The vandalism at Lions Park required the park to be shut down for at least Monday morning for cleaning. The cleaning involves a very expensive chemical that runs about $125 per one gallon pail and three to four people working for at least two hours each, most likely four hours working a pressure washer. That comes to 6-16 hours of city staff time that could be spent elsewhere improving parks or the park experience.
Likes estimates the clean up process for just this event will be over $500 provided no parts of the playground equipment need to be replaced. It will be much more if one of the clear plastic disks that was pained over, or a slide that was painted on, needs to be replaced.
“It’s frustrating for sure,” added Likes. “We have better things to do than paint over vandalism on trails or cleaning paint off playground equipment.”
Some of the vandalism has gone far beyond stupidity and vulgarity with a racial slur painted on a door at the park recently.
Photo by Bruce Karnick
Photo by Bruce Karnick
The Parks and Recreation maintenance crew cleans paint off multiple playground structures at Lions Park Monday morning, March 21. This is the start of the vandalism season at any of the 37 parks around Hastings. The crew is hopeful that parents talking to their kids could cut down the vandalism significantly.
