GREENVILLE — Park Board members discussed vandalism and other security issues at their monthly meeting Thursday afternoon, as well as announcing the receipt of over $6,000 in donations.
The first order of business at Thursday’s meeting involved complaints about Greenville citizens illegally dumping garbage in the City Park’s dumpsters.
“I see it all the time. People think these are their personal dumpsters,” Park Manager Deb Fall said. “I stopped a gentleman trying to dump a truckload of trash, and he got belligerent and said ‘I’ll just come back and do it after you leave.’ Or they say, ‘My taxes pay for this place, so I should get to use these dumpsters.’”
Business owner and board Vice President John Baumgardner said he’d had similar problems with people dumping trash in the dumpster at a car wash he owns.
“I put up a camera and it stopped,” Baumgardner said.
Baumgardner and Mayor Steve Willman offered to donate cameras for the dumpsters in the park if need be. Fall said police had been informed of the issue, and that she would be posting a notice on the city’s Facebook page as well. She also said there have been issues in the past with city employees and their spouses dumping trash in the park.
Fall said she also planned to put out a request on Facebook after the holiday season asking Greenville residents to donate their used Christmas lights to the park.
“I figured this might be something they’d be willing to do instead of packing them away and putting them in storage for a year,” Fall said.
Board president Dale Musser reported that police had caught a group of junior high school students spraying graffitti in the park.
“They were seventh or eighth graders,” Musser said. “Apparently one of them was putting the things he was spray-painting up on Facebook.”
Greenville police confirmed that multiple juveniles were being investigated in connection with the graffitti incidents at the bandshell and other locations in the park, but declined further comment.
Fall announced that the city parks had received $6,000 in donations, including a check for $2,000 from the Ketrow Foundation, a nonprofit based in Greenville; $2000 from the Lydia E. Schaurer Memorial Trust Fund, which has previously funded projects by the Darke County Center for the Arts and the Darke County Parks; and $2,000 from the Harry Stevens Memorial Foundation. Board members indicated that all of these funds would go toward purchasing a new sound system for the recently completed Marling Bandshell.
Finally, it was announced that board member Roger Snider would be stepping down after this month’s meeting. Mayor Steve Willman said that he would be appointing a new park board member before January’s meeting.
