Part of the bike trail fence at Baldwin Road
Have you noticed the unusually high number of bike trail fence sections that are down or missing in the Meiners Oaks/Mira Monte area? i called Supervisor Steve Bennett’s office about it the other day, to see if there was some haphazard-looking maintenance going on, and spoke with Steve Offerman about what i’d seen.
He told me that although there have been problems in the past with vandalism of the trail fence by motorcyclists (?!), leading to portions of the fence in the Oak View area being replace with a metal barrier, he wasn’t currently aware of any damage reports or maintenance work, and would check with the Parks Department.
Sure enough, he called me back later the same day with an update: the fence appears to have been vandalized in several places, and the Parks Department is going to be repairing it soon.
i’m going to guess that public bike trail fence vandals are not regular Post readers, and that even if they were there are deeper issues going on that an admonition isn’t going to touch, so i won’t bother with the obvious moral to this story. We all pay for maintenance of the trail, so if you see someone destroying or defacing it at any time, please alert the authorities.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I noticed that too – there are a number of sections broken between Villanova and Mira Monte Elementary School.
Vandalism is a gateway crime. Alerting the authorities will not help the perpetrators develop a sense of connection between their actions and any consequences of those actions. Perhaps the community really needs a vigilantism committee…
Thank you, Evan, for calling Supervisor Steve Bennett’s office and looking into this. His assistant, Steve Offerman, is usually very helpful in respondimg to Ojai issues… maybe when you have time send this item to City Watch…
What I meant by “usually very helpful,” is that he always responds in a timely manner, as he did in this instance…
Z, i agree with you that alerting the authorities will not help vandals develop a sense of connection between actions and consequences, or to their community. That’s not the function of the police…that’s simply to stop the vandalism before it goes further, and to get repairs underway sooner.
To build community connections and a sense of interdependence, other strategies are needed simultaneously. Perhaps regular block parties are a place/way to start?
I’m always a supporter of the more parties platform!
I suspect that public property destruction drives some residents deeper into their TV/Sofa cocoons. Any strategy that brings neighbors outdoors to learn each others’ names is indeed a great start.
Every day last week I drove by and noticed and thought to myself, “Oh, yeah, I need to call someone about that,” then promptly forgot. Thank you, evan, for alerting authorities!