Glen Arbor Park vandalism prompts call for community help
By Linda Alice Dewey
Sun contributor
Security cameras were always part of the plan for the two-year-old Glen Arbor park, but there was no real need urgency until recently.
“We always planned to have a camera up,” says Glen Arbor park commissioner Ron Calsbeek. “…It just never got done.”
The extremely popular park opened to rave reviews just two years ago. Aside from minor maintenance issues, things had gone relatively smoothly. Yet, there have been misuses. “Diapers flushed down the toilet,” cites Calsbeek. “We’ve also had stones put in the toilet. That was all last year.”
Perhaps it’s because the park is getting so much use. “I suppose it’s the kind of thing we should expect,” he admits. “What’s amazing is the park is so much busier than we ever thought it would be,” Calsbeek says. “I don’t think anyone on the commission anticipated there could be a couple hundred people there at one time…and dozens of people of all ages use the toys. We see adults on that climbing structure and even on the little spinning toys. That’s all fine. But the concern is when people intentionally cause destruction.”
The destruction he speaks of is heavy use of a sway swing that brought its concrete encrusted base out of the ground. And it’s happened twice.
“If you get a bunch of middle school kids on what looks like a swing…” he says he can see how they could get it to swing so much high would come out of the ground. “It’s possible they didn’t intend to do that. It also appears they kept swinging, because the concrete bases around the poles were pulled out of the ground.”
The first time it happened last season, he says, “We had the guy who installed it came back from Holland and excavated around the post, added several hundred pounds of concrete to what was existing.” That cost the township around $3K. It happened again this spring. This time, they’re going to restructure the base so it’s fixed “once and for all”.
The other instance involves the motion detector on the automatic flushing mechanism at the top of the chrome pipe behind a toilet seat. “Somebody has busted that off the stem for the second time,” he reports. “You have to kick it or personally unthread it to make that happen. So the mechanism is uncovered with wires showing. That happened twice in two weeks this spring.”
The park did put up three cameras on the exterior of the restroom building and another on a Wi-fi pole by the hardware store. That’s not all. “We’re putting signs around the bathroom and the park for people who witness anything to call the people who clean. Maybe we can get a sense of who did this.”
Park commissioners would like to see the public step in and intervene when they witness instances of extreme equipment use or when rules are being broken, even for things as benign as bikes in the park. While they are allowed on perimeter sidewalks, there is little room for them within the park itself. Calsbeek says people pretty much accept such requests with grace.
What they are saying is to the community in general. “We appeal to parents and others in the park to help us promote reasonable behavior.”
