City crews battle park vandals

By Katie Brown, Journal Staff Writer | Monday, August 21, 2006

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RAPID CITY -- Rapid City has 24 parks funded and maintained by the city, and officials say vandalism is a daily occurrence in all of them.

"It's a problem we'll probably have to deal with for a long time," said Lon Van Deusen, Parks Division manager for the Rapid City Parks and Recreation Department.

The parks department employs 10 full-time maintenance workers and some additional seasonal workers, and from Jan. 1 to Aug. 11 this year, those workers spent 293 hours repairing vandalism. Van Deusen said those hours add up to $7,281.78, not counting supplies for the repairs and items that must be replaced.

For example, when several light fixtures were vandalized in Canyon Lake Park, each fixture cost $700 to replace.

Scratching and carving on the city's more than 500 picnic tables is also a problem. He said that although the vandalism may seem minor to the person committing it, the accumulative cost of repair is significant.

He said vandalism to flower beds and plants also gets costly, but people aren't always the only ones to blame.

"We figured out a lot of it was caused by deer," Van Deusen said.

Other problems include graffiti, damage to park restrooms, broken glass on bike paths and, Van Deusen said, one he hasn't seen much until this years - broken sprinklers.

The parks are watered nightly, so maintenance workers didn't notice that sprinklers are broken until they notice dry spots in the grass. Van Deusen suspects that the sprinklers have either been kicked or hit with a bat.

Van Deusen said that with parks department employees spending so much time repairing vandalism, it takes away from other projects they could be working on.

"It seems like we take two steps back every time we take one step ahead," Van Deusen said.

He said he has noticed throughout his years at the parks department that vandalism seems to rise shortly before the start of school and peak during the first weeks of school. He said after fall arrives, vandalism usually drops off.

He does not blame juveniles alone and said that often, there is no way to know exactly who committed an act of vandalism.

"It gets to the point where we have a hard time keeping up," Van Deusen said. "And a lot of it occurs in places we don't inspect on a daily basis."

Van Deusen said those who see someone in the act of committing vandalism should call police. Those who find vandalism or other destruction in the park can call the parks department at 394-5225.

Van Deusen said one way the parks department is curbing vandalism and litter is the volunteer bike-path patrol initiated a few weeks ago.

"Basically, people just volunteer to check the path and check in with us," he said.

He said volunteers pick up trash and clean up broken glass, which is a persistent problem in the parks.

The parks department has a small utility vehicle that volunteers can use, and some people volunteer because they walk or ride the path every day anyway.

"I'm not sure that we'll ever be able to stop vandalism in our parks," Van Deusen said. "But we've noticed if we can make improvements and get more families out there to use the parks, we think that discourages some vandalism."

Contact Katie Brown at 394-8318 or katie.brown@rapidcityjournal.com