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Scarring the city's crown jewel Vandals, carelessness continue
to mar Naperville Riverwalk By Kathy Millen
Dueling with destruction
Riverwalk commissioners try to fight ongoing vandalism
Bill Young, Park District chief of police, said officers will hand out warning tickets to children on bikes, skates and skateboards and send a letter home to their parents for the first infraction. Repeat offenses are subject to a $50 fine and possible suspension from the Riverwalk for up to 90 days. Adults on bikes, skateboards or skates may be issued tickets for their first offense.
"The rules are posted," Young said. "We assume that an adult is able to comprehend the rules and abide by them without being warned."
Anyone witnessing vandalism at the Riverwalk is asked to call the Naperville Police Department
Cliff Preston and Frank Allston stood along the DuPage River gazing at a few words of graffiti written on the underside of a bridge along the Riverwalk.
"That's a new one," Preston said, turning away from the vulgarity printed in eye-catching, black block letters.
Disgusted, he looked out over the river, resigned to the fact there are people who think nothing about defacing something beautiful.
As chairman of the Riverwalk Commission, Preston has seen plenty of vandalism on the Riverwalk during his almost daily walks on the pathway he loves so dearly.
Allston, also a longtime member of the commission, has seen it, too. Like Preston, he feels an almost paternal affection for the 20-year-old walkway that stretches through downtown Naperville and beyond. Like Preston, he is trying to figure out how to stop it.
"Maybe they'll be like a Hula-Hoop and they'll go away," Allston said.
No such luck. As they walked along the Riverwalk on a hot, sunny day, Allston and Preston saw the gaping spaces along the top of a stone wall where someone had ripped off several cap stones and hurled them into the river. They noted the numerous commemorative medallions, sold in 1981 to raise funds for the Riverwalk, pried from their lodging along the edge of the brick pathway. They saw trampled flowers, smashed drain tiles and construction barricades that had been tossed into the river.
Jeff Nack, director of park operations for the Naperville Park District, which maintains the Riverwalk, said vandalism is a recurring problem there.
"We experience regular vandalism to varying degrees," he said. "It goes all the way from graffiti to actual equipment damage, whether it's benches being defaced or trash cans thrown in the river. We try to keep it as invisible as possible. We have our staff out to clean up glass and graffiti as quick as we can."
Occasionally, gang graffiti turns up at the Riverwalk. In those cases, the graffiti is photographed for Naperville police records before it is cleaned up.
Bill Young, chief of the Naperville Park District's police force, said gang graffiti is not a serious problem at the Riverwalk. In fact, he said vandalism seems to be less severe this year than in years past, thanks to increased Park District police patrols. When school is not in session, the Riverwalk is patrolled 14 hours daily by officers on bicycles, on some occasions as many as four at a time.
"With the increase in patrolling I see a reduction in damage this year that I haven't seen in the past," Young said. "We are not getting as much vandalism and were are not getting as much graffiti as we have in the past."
Still, vandalism remains an expensive problem. When gang graffiti recently was painted on the Moser Bridge on the east extension of the Riverwalk, it cost more than $150 to clean up, said Dawn Banks, north supervisor for the district.
"We had to go rent a huge sandblaster to take it off," Banks said. "It took my guys a couple hours away from what they normally would do. Those costs start adding up."
The district spends from $500 to $1,500 annually dealing with vandalism on the Riverwalk, Banks said. Last year it spent $700. This year that amount already is at $500.
Not helping matters this summer is the increased number of people who find it entertaining to pour soap into the Dandelion Fountain to watch it bubble. What may initially seem like a harmless prank has turned into an expensive headache for Park District staff members, who have to drain and thoroughly clean the fountain after each foamy incident.
During recent months, the fountain has been emptied and cleaned at least twice a week — a process that takes several hours — because of soap-dispensing vandals.
"You can't just drain it," Banks said, "and you can't put (the contaminated water) into the river. It has to go into storm sewers, which the city has given us permission to do. Then you have to really scrub it down, otherwise the soap is still there and will bubble up on us."
In addition to the cost of man hours, staff members must dump about $25 worth of chemicals into the water each time they refill the fountain.
Those costs are funded by taxpayers. Allston said perhaps parents will pay more attention to what their children are doing at the Riverwalk if they realize they are paying the cost of repairs.
One of the major sources of damage to the Riverwalk is skateboard activity, despite numerous posted signs prohibiting the use of skateboards, skates and bicycles on the Riverwalk.
Young said Park District police have tried to divert skateboard traffic to other facilities, including the skate park at Frontier Park. But many youths still bring them to the Riverwalk.
The Riverwalk Commission has been trying to halt skate use by posting additional warning signs and installing skate-blocking devices at the bottom step of the Riverwalk Amphitheater and other curb areas where skateboarders frequent. The metal devices stick out just enough so skaters cannot execute their maneuvers.
But there are no such devices to protect the Farmer's Monument on Eagle Street near Jackson Avenue. The granite base of the monument is marred by long scratches and deep gouges that are beyond repair. Replacing the base, which is engraved with the names of more than 300 Naperville farm families, would cost about $70,000. The Riverwalk Commission is considering installing a decorative fence around the monument to cut down on further damage.
Vandals have not overlooked the newly opened east extension of the Riverwalk. During construction, they gained access to the unfinished Jaycees Gazebo by cutting through orange fiberglass fencing. They loosened a 700-pound stone at the Masonic Temple Plaza from its base in an unsuccessful attempt to throw it into the river. They threw picnic tables from a nearby fast food restaurant into the river. They hung on branches of trees until they broke. They damaged bricks at Rotary Plaza with their skateboards and in-line skates.
When the vandals sprung a lock on the gate of a fence separating the east extension and North Central College, a frustrated Preston came back with his own chain and padlock. A few days later, someone cut the chain and stole the lock.
And when the unfinished Moser Bridge was barricaded with planks, carefully mounted with screws, someone came back with a screw gun and removed the screws and boards to cross the bridge.
Now the newest attractions on the Riverwalk and in the downtown area — the giraffe sculptures — have caught the attention of vandals. Within the first two days of their installation, at least four of the 6-foot-tall fiberglass figures for Naperville United Way's fund-raising Baby Giraffe Walk were damaged.
"And they wonder why I get angry," Preston said, shaking his head. "You try to make something nice for people to use and everybody to enjoy and it only takes a couple of people to come along and take your faith away." |
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