Litter, graffiti mar skatepark
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ST. IGNATIUS — When a mess is left, someone always has to clean it up.
And at the Skate Ignatius skatepark, someone’s been leaving a lot of messes behind, whether it’s skaters leaving litter strewn about, other residents depositing household garbage in and around the park’s garbage cans or vandals painting graffiti on the concrete. St. Ignatius public works director Ray Frey said the problems are getting worse, and tracking down the culprits isn’t easy.
“They’ve kind of turned it into a dump site,” Frey said. “There’s garbage cans, but they’re not using them.”
It’s an issue Mayor Charley Gariepy said he brings up “about every (town council) meeting.”
“I’m really disappointed in the garbage and the graffiti,” he said.
Frey, Gariepy and other city council members often end up being the ones to scrub off the graffiti or pick up the trash, and they’d like to see the community become more involved in the effort to keep the park clean.
“Somebody always gets tired of looking at (the mess) and goes and cleans it up,” Gariepy said. “I really don’t know how we can police it better … short of the public policing it.”
If people dumping household garbage at the site could be identified, they could be charged with theft of service, Frey said. But hauling off the trash is simpler than digging through someone’s garbage looking for a name and address, he added.
The shorthanded St. Ignatius Police Department gained a new full-time officer on Monday, Gariepy noted, and he hopes having an officer back on patrol will help with the skatepark issues.
