Should it be a crime to help maintain our Parks?

[Donald Farris]

Hi,
I just read about Mr. John Hamilton, a good citizen of Sandusky, OH, that got frustrated by the grass not being cut in Sandusky's central park. Wanting to make the park look nicer, he decided he would just mow the grass. Well, you would think the City would thank him, but instead they arrested him. Police stopped him because someone was complaining about him blowing grass and trash on the sidewalk. The grass was about a foot high, so I would guess mowing that would blow some around. When they ordered him to stop mowing he refused. That got him arrested. Well, I know some time I've been mowing until it turned dark because I wanted to finish the job. Sounds like he didn't want to leave the job undone.

City Manager Matt Kline (Oh, Sandusky has one of them!) said they had budget cuts and the maintenance or the parks was suffering.

See: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/05/29/national/a124827D33.DTL&feed=rss.bondage

Perhaps, Lakewood could learn from this and be proactive with asking Lakewood citizens to help where budget cuts have left some things undone. If someone wants to offer assistance to keeping Lakewood's parks looking good, please Mr. Mayor don't arrest him/her. Maybe, you could have a "Help keep our City looking Good" web page where citizens could look to see what needs done (and could be done without getting arrested).

JMHO

[Jim O'Bryan]

Don

This is going on. Friends of Madison Park/Friends of Lakewood Parks has been
working miracles with Lakewood Parks.




Friends of Madison Park left to right: Dave Seman, Paul Burke, Judy Grzyboski,
Mary Louise Madigan, Karen Kuramot (in back), Tessa and Parker Smith, Mayor Fitzgerald,
Travis Gallagher and daughters, Valerie Molinski and kids, Mel Page, Margaret and
Katherine Cooney, George Graham & Michael Fleenor and kids. Thank you for your
hard work and dedication.

One could ask though why anyone could be harassed or arrested for cleaning up the
streets and city.


This group of criminals used to clean up the railroad tracks every spring, but
did so under the threat of possible arrest!


Which is what I have been told could happen to the walker that cleaned up
over 25 illegally posted signs on Detroit Ave. one morning.

While it is illegal to post signs like this, and illegal to take them down without
calling the police out to do it. I guess this walker just wanted to save the city
some money, while letting the company know it would not "ghettoize" Lakewood.

.

[Bret Callentine]

you have to be one step ahead, which is why our church youth group did "drive by" cleanups last summer. Two van loads of kids, each armed with a garbage bag. we'd pull up to a lakewood park, stop the car, and they'd have one minute to collect as much trash as they could before loading back into the van and moving on to the next site.

They had fun with it, and we gave out prizes for whomever collected the most trash.

They can't arrest you if they can't catch you.

This year, maybe I'll have the kids wear ski masks, just in case.