Whitehorse vandals have struck again.
This time, they hit a $15,000 pedestrian bridge that had only been up for a few days, said Mayor Bev Buckway.
“The bridge near the Porter Creek pump house was just put up. It’s really disappointing to see this happen,” said Buckway.
“Vandalism costs everybody.”
City vandals should consider their neighbours when destroying public property because it takes away opportunities from others’ enjoyment and is generally inconsiderate, said the mayor.
The bridge spanning McIntyre Creek was erected just before Christmas.
Days later, vandals used it for kindling.
It has since been fixed, said parks manager Linda Rapp.
“It’s a well travelled little path. It lasted about a week and a bit before it was vandalized,” she said.
“The railings that go along the side were ripped off and somebody had a little bonfire off to the side.”
The idea of people sitting around the bridge-fed fire is a little scary considering the smoke would be toxic, said Rapp.
“You can picture these people around this fire at the McIntyre Creek bridge and it’s pressure treated wood, which isn’t a good thing to be inhaling.”
Burning public property is not a new thing — it happens a lot.
Over the last year alone, people have burnt fences, signs, park benches and parts of city-owned picnic structures, said Rapp.
“There’s ongoing little stuff. They’re burning whatever they can burn — Chadburn Lake is a perfect example of that.
“Originally it was a beautiful shelter. It’s still beautiful, but the reality is it’s pretty much bomb proof at this point.”
The problem at Chadburn Lake occurred over the summer.
People were taking pieces of wood from the picnic shelter and setting them alight on nearby metal tables, said Rapp.
“We ended up putting up a metal grate and bolting it across the top because people kept taking the beams across the top of the shelter to use for firewood,” she said.
“They were doing that all through the summer.
“Some of those metal picnic tables are actually stained from fires.”
The parks department usually budgets about $100,000 a year on vandalism-related shenanigans, said Rapp.
The city has been rocked by theft and vandalism over the past few years.
On the hit list over the past year or so was the miner statue on Main Street, which was spray-painted; a city pump-house that had several gallons of diesel spilt near it; fences surrounding sewage lagoons that have been repeatedly torn down, and decorative moose antlers that were stolen from the Canada Games Centre.