News : Well, I Guess It’s Your Money....

“Hey boss, someone smashed the gate at Minne Estema.” How’s that for a Monday morning greeting at the office? The River Parks Ranger, Jon Geiger, was waiting for me when I arrived at work that morning. Thankfully he had started a pot of coffee for us knowing it would help to quell the anger brewing inside me. It seems someone had decided that the closed entrance gate at one of our parks was not meant to keep them out, so they rammed it until the gate was torn off of its hinges, off the post it was anchored to and then, just to be sure we wouldn’t be able to attach the destroyed gate, they stole the chain securing it to the post. Total damages: $630.00 Entering the park further, Jon discovered that someone (unknown if the same culprit) must have thought the only way to enter our restrooms was to shoot the lock securing the brand new electrical box installed for security lighting on our remodeled bathroom. It doesn’t matter that the lock wasn’t cut; the impact broke the locking mechanism on the lock and destroyed the electrical box. The bathroom, by the way, wasn’t locked. Total damages: $210.00 Moving on to another set of gates in yet another park, they too were bent beyond repair. Total damages: $430.00 Even though we post to the website and Facebook page that our parks are closed for the season, walk-in use only, there are those that feel these safety standards do not apply to them and so they proceed to destroy public property, which, ironically enough, they pay for through their tax dollars. I have been asked by people why we can’t add playground equipment to certain parks, pave our park roads, upgrade electrical sites...and the list goes on. Perhaps if people realized we are constantly repairing vandalism to our parks, often times on improvements we just completed, they would understand where their dollars go and how frustrated, disappointed and angry it makes our staff.  We have an overwhelming sense of pride in what we do. We write grants to secure funding to take the burden off of the taxpayers. People continue to give donations to our foundation to help support conservation. We try hard to supplement the budget in every way we can. Still, people choose to destroy our hard work. Over the years in our parks, we have picked up air conditioners, microwaves, TV’s, TV carts, tires, refrigerators, stoves, washers, dryers, and most likely any other household item you can imagine. The time it takes to pick up after people, the dollars it takes to run these items to the landfill and the frustration involved, makes us wonder why we continue to fight the good fight. We recently replaced the gates, posts, and lock and chain that were destroyed at the above mentioned park. Within one week, the new lock was destroyed and the gate stood wide open. That’s right: ONE WEEK! We have purchased multiple security cameras for our parks. These are instant download, so when someone tries to steal one of these cameras, they will already be on our phones and most likely will be hearing from the sheriff office in a timely fashion. These cameras and the cost to operate them are rather expensive in and of themselves. Unfortunately a necessary cost from the taxpayers to help us keep our parks safe and free of vandalism