In-house vandalism troubles officials
CALIFORNIA – A California borough councilman briefly addressed in-house vandalism to an area of the municipal building that is only accessible to police officers and a couple of borough employees. According to councilman John Greenlief, someone recently vandalized a locker in the police locker room and the door of the mayor’s office.
Greenlief expressed his disgust with the incident at a planning session Thursday. He explained that both the locker room area and the mayor’s office are located in a section of the municipal building that it is only accessible with a key, which is only given to police officers and a couple of borough employees.
The area in question is a closed area housing the police department, the mayor’s office and the zoning and code enforcer’s office.
Greenlief said the borough’s taxpayers are still paying for the newly built borough building and that in-house vandalism will not be tolerated. He said that officials should be able to figure out who was in the department during the time of the vandalizing and if they can’t figure out who vandalized the police department, they “might as well close the area down or limit who has access to the department.”
“We spend half of the borough’s budget to put people (police) on the street to chase down vandals…If we have to worry about those same people vandalizing our own property, it’s almost a waste,” Greenlief said.
Greenlief said the borough will not allow that type of behavior, and said if people need to be replaced, they will be replaced.
President Arthur Harris said all police officers have access to the police department area, but if there is a need to limit the access to the department, council would have to do that.
Harris said council may have to explore the possibility of only giving on-duty officers access to the department and have them sign for keys, so that the borough will have a record of who had access to the area at what time.
“If they want to play kid games, we’ll treat them like kids,” Harris said. “If need be, we’ll write mandates to find the officers responsible.”
In other business, Harris asked that residents clean leaves off the streets.
Harris said after the recent rains, he’s noticed that leaves are clogging the storm sewers, particularly on Shutterly Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Councilman John Difilippo brought it to council’s attention that a business on Wood Street and Strawberry Alley has asked if they could rent two parking meters for customer parking.
Greenlief said that he didn’t think that would work, saying the purpose of the meters are to keep traffic flowing and parking spaces open. He said if the borough starts renting parking meters to businesses that would defeat the purpose of the meters.
Difilippo said he will research the matter to see if there are any ordinances against renting the meters before council votes on it next week at the regular meeting.