City councillor says park vandalism is ‘getting out of control’

Windsor's Lanspeary Park

A Windsor city councillor says vandalism in city parks is ‘getting out of control.’

“It’s getting worse year over year, and it’s not just in my ward; it’s in Ward 2, it’s in Ward 3, and we’re seeing it in Ward 5 as well, there’s been some incidents over the past couple of weeks,” says McKenzie. “It’s really frustrating.”

Ward 4 Councillor Mark McKenzie says in his ward there’s been trouble at Lanspeary Park with the washrooms recently being vandalized.

McKenzie says police have been at Lanspeary Park.

“Lanspeary Park has been a park that we’ve had issues at over the the past years, not only with encampments and homeless but also a lot of teenagers going there and just causing trouble,” says McKenzie. “They vandalized the bathroom recently as well there, and it’s really getting out of control.”

He says the city has invested in Lanspeary Park.

McKenzie says more major investments at the park are on the way worth millions of dollars.

“You don’t want to start putting up cameras and stuff in the parks, but part of me wonders, like, are we going to have to start going down that route?,” says McKenzie. “Because of everything that we’ve done so far, it seems the problem kind of just seems to keep happening, and it keeps returning year over year.”

He says he is hearing from residents, and they’re asking what the city is doing to address the issues.

“We’re seeing a lot of the activity early mornings and after school; it seems to be the busiest times and weekends, of course, but yeah, the crazy thing is, it’s literally like teenagers who are causing a lot of these issues,” he says.

McKenzie says it’s frustrating city parks are being vandalized.

He says city staff are aware of the vandalism and continue to monitor it.