With the rise in vandalism at John Stiff Memorial Park, the Amarillo City Council received an update last week about the state of the city park, with recommendations discussed to curtail rising damages to park facilities.
According to Michael Kashuba, Amarillo Parks and Recreation director, John Stiff Memorial Park has had over 13 incidents of vandalism, break-ins, and robberies since June. He addressed the council with some of the measures currently being taken and to get feedback on workable solutions to the issues at the park.
“Council asked for an update on the continued issues at John Stiff Park, which originated from a conversation where we had to amend a lease agreement with our youth sports foundation to remove the park from their lease,” Kashuba said. “We have seen many challenges in the last year regarding vandalism, graffiti and damage to the park. We talked about some of the short-term actions we are working on, such as setting up cameras and working with the Amarillo Police Department with more patrols and long-term solutions.”
Kashuba said that improved park lighting will help decrease some of the issues. Extending a road through the dead-end areas of the parking lot and putting up gates at closed locations are some of the measures being discussed to alleviate these issues. There was also a discussion about changing the park’s hours, which currently closes at midnight.
According to Kashuba, one of the most significant problem areas is around the skate park, which is a constant target for graffiti; he said that the city has one full-time staff member that is assigned to remove graffiti which appears as quickly as it is cleaned. The bathroom at the skate park is scheduled to be demolished at the end of the month due to the facility’s age.
“One of the things we have looked at is a temporary closure as an option for the skate park,” he said. “We have made no decisions yet, but looking at areas that were high in crime, we looked at this as one of those areas to close while looking at long-term solutions.”
The next steps that are being taken are to add more cameras for surveilling problem areas and get quotes to add more lights to the park.
“This is a very dark park at night,” Kashuba said. “So, if there are ways we can light parking and trail areas we think will reduce crime in the park. We had suggestions from the council about potentially closing the park earlier and some possible temporary closures until spring. We are considering the pros and cons of different options with the council.”
Kashuba said the skate park has always had vandalism, especially with the cultural nature of having a skate park. Still, the significant rise in damages at the pool, softball and tennis areas is of great concern. The pool area has been broken into over five times during summer.
“We have seen a significant uptick in damage-related issues in these parks,” Kashuba said. “Damage to the softball fences, the complex itself and then the pool are the areas that we have seen the most rise. A lot of the activity for these damages stems from the skate park.”
The Martin Road skatepark has not had any issues, so the city is trying to learn from what is done differently at that park.
“We are trying to figure out ways to fix the issues at John Stiff Park,” Kashuba said. “We are working on installing cameras right now. In the very short term, we should have these working on premises.”
There is a concern that, due to the bad actions of some residents, their quality of life could be affected by earlier closings, which could affect walking or other activities. Thousands of dollars of damage have been done to the pool, fences and gates in the park.
Kashuba says he wants the community to take more ownership of the park to make it a better place for all.
“We are always looking for input from the community and I think part of it is we want people to use these spaces but use it responsibility,” Kashuba said. “If we have teenagers that are hanging out in those spaces, we want to make sure they are using it responsibly and they are using the park as intended. It comes back to personal responsibility; we all have a stake in this community space, it is maintained well.”