The public parks in Leeds have often been a source of pride for residents to show off to visiting family members. However, during the last council meeting some residents expressed concern that the parks were being vandalized and not being cleaned.The specific complaints were that trash was strewn in the baseball fields, graffiti was painted on some of the rocks and picnic tables, benches were broken and some of the trash cans and their holders were broken down and bent over.
Mayor James Whitfield said part of the trash problem was due to being short-handed in the sanitation department.
“We were on a pretty good regular schedule that on Fridays we had an employee that did nothing but cleanup the park and empty the trash,” Councilwoman Carol Phillips said. “Then, we implemented this community service program, which in my estimation has gone to pot. We’re not even getting anybody. We haven’t had anybody in a month.”
A suggestion was made to enlist the help of some of the youth leagues that use the fields to help keep the park clean.
Phillips suggested using prisoners instead of youth volunteers to keep the park clean and indicated her disappointment in the community service program.
“I think we need to look into that because that would be a lot more reliable than depending on these juveniles,” Phillips said. “I had hoped that it (the community service program) would have worked out when we implemented the program and it did for a while, but I don’t know what’s happened. I guess we worked them to death.”
Whitfield suggested setting closing hours for the park may cut down the vandalism and graffiti.
“We may look at the possibility of having closing hours where no one can be back there,” Whitfield said.
The solution of closing access to the park was countered with the reminder that a public road goes through the park and there is a shortage of police officers to enforce the park closure.
A solution was not immediately available at the conclusion of the council meeting. The condition of the park may continue to be a public concern until a cost effective and practical solution can be settled on by the mayor and the council.
