Vandals' destruction hurts the whole town

Vandalism abides by no season.

Whether it's spring, summer, fall, or winter, damage is carved, shattered and painted on public and private property.

All vandals, who are often bored teenagers, need are opportunity and a few unsupervised seconds to wreck something.

Unfortunately, their mark and remnants are seen and felt for weeks and months.

Take the fountain in West Dundee's Grafelman Park, for example. Late last fall, someone broke the lights in the $200,000 public fountain, and it was only this week the parts arrived so it could be fixed.

"It's a shame. If it wasn't for the damage, we could have turned the fountain on for the Memorial Day ceremony," said village Manager Joe Cavallaro.

"A lot of people like walking in the park and looking at it."

But it won't be ready until later this week, less than a month before the beginning of summer. When it is, village officials will have paid more than $2,000 for materials, plus more money to pay public works employees to fix it.

The teens were caught, prosecuted and ordered to perform community service work, but the entire ordeal could have been avoided if they just left the fountain alone, he said.

West Dundee officials consider themselves fortunate to have caught and place blame on the vandals. Many times they are long gone when the damage is discovered, repaired and paid for.

That was case of the person who on a spring night shot BBs through windows at Immanuel Lutheran Church in East Dundee and stores in downtown West Dundee last month. No one has been caught, leaving merchants and church congregation members to turn to their insurance policies to pay the tens of thousands of dollars in repairs.

"It's one thing when the damage is harmless, but this could have been dangerous and it was expensive," Cavallaro said.

The type and extent of the damage usually isn't that bad, police said. Many times, it consists of spray paint on walls, bridges or sidewalks or initials carved in wood on a park bench.

"It still costs money to fix. Someone has to pay for repairs," said Gilberts Police Chief Mike Joswick. "Whenever something happens in our parks, we have to pay our public works people to fix it."

They were responsible to erasing the spray paint on the skateboarding path in Memorial Park or fixing the rails of a bridge in Waitcus Park. Someone wiggled the rails loose and made it dangerous.

"These are just stupid things that kids do," Joswick said. "When we catch them we usually take them home and give them a stern talking-to."

Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. Police have been known to suspect the same troublemakers. Every town has them, Joswick said. For those who haven't been active in a few months, they probably will be within the coming summer months, when school is out and days of baseball games and skateboarding get boring.

Pork in your future: The East Dundee Firefighters' Association will hold its pork chop and chicken barbecue in Max Freeman Park on July 11. Meals will be served from 4:30-7 p.m. Bingo will be played and music will be performed until 10 p.m.

Tickets for the catered meal $12 each.

"This will be the second year we will hold the barbecue. It replaces our summer carnival that got too costly to sponsor," said East Dundee Fire Chief Mark Rakow. "Last year, we had a great turnout. We want as many people as possible to buy tickets before so we know how much food to have."

Firefighters will also be selling raffle tickets for $1 each. The grand prize is $1,000.

Money raised will be used to maintain the park, which the fire district owns. For tickets, call (847) 426-7521.