Vandalism continues to cause problems for the city

The summer has turned into a rather rough one for city workers trying to keep fountains and cameras operating around city operations, as well as tending to gardens in full bloom.

A burst of vandalism of late across the city, has many at city hall wondering what can be done to protect civic property and rein in those that seem to have nothing but wanton destruction on their minds these days.

The Daily News examined the latest high profile bit of destruction, last weeks attack on the flower beds at City hall.

VANDALS RUIN CITY’S FLOWER BEDS
Floral displays trashed leading to draining of colour from the city
By Christian Webber
The Daily News
Monday, August 20, 2007
Page one

If you are wondering why Prince Rupert’s city hall has started to remove flowerbeds early this year it is because of vandalism overnight on Thurs. Aug 16.

Donna Drury, the head gardener for the city said we have a lot of vandalism with the flowerbeds throughout the season but this time they totally wrote off one bed.

“People are going to be wondering why there are no flowers in that bed anymore. It’s not because we’re pulling them early, they got totally destroyed,” said Drury.

She said the beds were damaged beyond repair. Whoever is responsible is doing it through the night, some of the planters near the credit union have also been destroyed, said Drury.

There has already been people going into city hall and complaining that the flowers are being pulled early.

“There are surveillance cameras on one side, but it seems like after the cameras go up, activity shifts to another side,” said Drury.

She said everything by the fountains was destroyed in recent years, so she doesn’t even plant there anymore.

“I want the townspeople to see what’s going on, they think we have no vandalism and it goes on everyday,” said Drury.

She said it is very unusual that we don’t have vandalism somewhere in the city on any given day.

“We have a real bad problem with it here. I don’t know why,” said Drury.

She said she didn’t want to put a dollar amount on the damage, but said the city does suffer a lot of vandalism and if they were to add it up at the end of the year, it would be staggering.

“On this one, the flowers are one thing, but the maintenance to look after them, it’s considerable. Every time we end up pulling a bed at this time of the year, they could have been in there for another two months, and now I’ve got no flowers to replace in there, so we’re going to be looking at dirt,” said Drury.

“It’s really unfortunate, once they’re damaged they are gone for the season.”

She said the city does replacements in the beds from vandalism throughout the summer but they have run out of plants for the year.