Vandalism With A Silver Lining

The Friends of the Soda Springs City Park encountered a discouraging event of vandalism at the Maverik Caribou CommUNITY Playground this past week. Surveillance footage gathered from the Soda Springs Police Department shows a group of 5 youth playing at the playground on Saturday, April 5th when one of the teenage members of the group decided to scale the perimeter fencing and stand atop the fence, and intentionally rock and rattle the shade cover structure that is welded to the existing swingset in the tot-lot area. After testing the shade cover’s durability the teen again decided to climb atop the fence and then jumped onto the shade covers with their full weight and momentum, intentionally breaking the shade covers. This resulted in all the connective bolts being sheared off; all while being filmed by one of the other kids.

Hours later Laura Lind, the President of the Friends of the Soda Springs City Park nonprofit, was notified via text message about the vandalism, at which point the city and police were notified and the park was closed off to the public.

Blaze Sign initially designed the metal structures that span out around the swing set, that will eventually carry the shade canopy, to be connected via bolts in an effort to simplify the removal of the shade canopies every year prior to Winter. Removing these shade canopies is mandatory as they are not designed to carry the snow load we encounter in our area, and the Friends and City want to prolong the life of all of this new equipment.

After discovering the way youth chose to interact with the new shade structure so destructively, Blaze Sign decided to modify their design to prioritize stability over convenience, and removed the original bolt system. Instead they welded all joints and seams permanently, as well as adding metal strapping and metal gusset plates to reinforce the structure.

The police department has reached out to school resource officers at Soda Springs High School, Grace High School and North Gem High School but were unable to identify the youth. It is believed that the kids may have been visiting from out of town.

As of Thursday, April 11th both fortified shade structures have been installed on the swing sets at the playground! Signage is present warning people to refrain from climbing on the new equipment, and other signage requesting people at the playground to report vandalism to the police department will be installed in the coming weeks. On Saturday a group of volunteers from Zachry joined the Friends in planting 6 new trees, installed bird spikes on one of the swing sets, and began work to prepare the tee-pee and geyser mural for updates. The city also installed the final in-ground mounted picnic tables this past week.

This vandalism event was a good wake-up call for our special little community. If you see something wrong please confront it, and stop it. Many companies and individuals have donated generously to bring this wonderful asset to our community and we want to keep our citizens and play equipment safe.

The Friends are also proud to celebrate another great windfall of support from the following groups: the IFFT Grant through the Idaho Community Foundation ($3,382), Modern Woodmen of America Insurance Company ($2,500), Nutrien ($2,000), Direct Communications ($1,500), and Gibbs Farms ($500).

Planning is ongoing for the rededication and blue ribbon cutting event scheduled for sometime in May as the community celebrates all of the new additions made to the playground in the past 5 years. The exact date will depend on when the shade sails are received, prepared and installed by Blaze Sign. Once the date is determined the public will all be invited to the festive gathering!