This is an open letter to the vandals who targeted the Creal Soccer complex over the weekend.
Mrs. Mac and I ride our bikes around our city almost every day. We enjoy riding, getting exercise and enjoying the sites and people we meet along our rides. Coldwater has a nice network of biking/walking paths, and we like to take advantage of our city’s resources.
This week, on one of our rides, we noticed that there were new bag dispensers installed at the Creal Soccer Complex, and our first impressions were “that’s a nice feature to add so that people walking their pets will have easy access and a quick way to pick up after their pets and dispose of waste easily. It should help people to keep the park clean and sanitary.
Apparently, some other folks had a different impression. As we rode around the soccer fields on Saturday, three of the four bag stations had been vandalized, all the bags were strewn across the bike/walking paths, and on the soccer fields. Then, obviously not satisfied with just damaging the bag dispensers and wasting all the costs of providing the bags, the vandals decided to tip over both of the port-a-johns stationed at opposite ends of the soccer fields, which are provided for patrons of the park.
Dear Vandals,
What is your point? During our bike-ride this morning, Mrs. Mac and I picked up the bags you threw all over the park and we disposed of them in the trash receptacles. We don’t know what joy or satisfaction you got from your actions, or why you felt justified in damaging equipment and wasting resources.
We are curious as to why you felt the need to push over the portable toilet facilities. We picked them up and made them upright again, but they are unusable until the supplier can get them serviced again to clean up the mess you made (we called the provider and left them a message).
In fact, this is the fourth time this season (and it’s only June 1) that we have seen at least one of the portable toilets tipped over. This time both were overturned.
Are you trying to get the park to withdraw the services they offer? Will that make you happy to see services taken away because service providers will be unwilling to provide equipment and services when they can’t count on them being left undamaged?
We really want to know what motivates you because it makes no sense to us. We don’t know the cost of those bags, but we do know that they are not available today for people who might be walking their dogs in the park. We just don’t know why you felt a need to damage the dispensers and destroy 400-500 bags.
The same question I have for people who just drop their trash in the park, when a receptacle is ten steps away, is the question I have for you. Why?
If you trashed the soccer complex and are reading this letter (no matter how unlikely that is), I hope you’ll respond, either to my email listed below or in an anonymous comment, because your motivation is very interesting to me.
In the meantime, I imagine that surveillance will end up being installed (at additional cost) to protect activities around the soccer fields. Or the equipment installed will be removed and patrons will just have to make do.
It makes me sad (the second sad column this weekend – yes, I published a column earlier this weekend) that these are the actions you opt to pursue.
There are more constructive and productive activities that you could choose. I hope you’ll search for those.
Curt MacRae is a resident of Coldwater, MI, and publishes opinion columns regularly.
Tweets @curtmacrae — comments to rantsbymac@gmail.com
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