Oceanside Minor Baseball officials are upset after dugouts at Springwood Community Park were recently spray-painted with vile graffiti and littered with garbage, human feces and drug paraphernalia.
President Rob McGorman said this has been an ongoing problem but the recent event was “the worst.”
The dugouts and a building structure were tagged, spray-painted with offensive words and damage was done to shelving units, said McGorman.
“Every week I go up there there’s something,” he said. “In the last two to three years, it has gotten 10 times worse. It’s ridiculous. Every time I go up there, I close one eye and I peek around the corner and expect the worst.”
The small diamond, which has dugouts and a building where OMB stores equipment, is located in the darkest spot of the park.
“We trying to get the City of Parksville to install lights up up there,” said McGorman. “It’s in the dark out there and we’ve had confrontations with people in the dugouts when we go there.”
The Oceanside Minor Baseball park is located near Springwood Elementary School. It’s also adjacent to a tennis court. Other fields are located in the area however, these parks have lights and are patrolled by Footprints Security.
McGorman said they have approached the city and have also asked that their park be included in the city’s security routes.
The City of Parksville had crews out Friday morning to paint over the graffiti. One of them indicated this has become routine and that they expect this to clean up the graffiti maybe 10 times this year.
McGorman said that this should be a concern because the field is also used by the elementary students during the day.
“The field is primarily used by eight-to-12-year-olds,” said McGorman. “Now before we start practice, I have to make sure the field is safe.”
