Graffiti, litter are facts of life

Odessa city officials seem to have forgotten the rule of thumb when it comes to public property in our community: If you build it, they will abuse it. It should have been no surprise that someone would “tag” portions of the spanking new skate park with graffiti.

Nevertheless, some time was spent scolding skateboarders for the damage. Parks Director Steve Patton went so far as to threaten to fence off the Ruben Pier Memorial Skate Park at Sherwood Park. Parks authorities also were upset that some skaters were leaving behind trash at the facility.

But let’s face it, the damage and messy behavior at the new park is just a continuation of a long pattern by some scummy members of the community who don’t care how unsightly their town is.

From a litter standpoint, you have only to look at any place where large numbers of people congregate to see the trashy nature of some residents. In parking lots and parks across the city, it’s not unusual to see discarded drink containers, plastic bags, remnants of product boxes and even used diapers. And we expect sudden classy cleanliness because the skate park is new.

As for vandalism, that’s nothing new in our parks. Heck, one of the prime examples is just across Sherwood Park from the skate facility, Prairie Pete and all the other “sculptures” in the kiddie play area have been damaged time and time again.

And when a lot of well-meaning folks, including private donors, transformed the buffalo wallow on 42nd Street into Memorial Garden Park, those bent on criminal mischief saw it as an opportunity to tarnish the city’s image. So we have seen several of the high-dollar bronze statues broken and/or stolen.

What’s more, the annoyance on the part of city officials about the new skate park seemed to imply that they blamed the skateboarders for the graffiti.

Sure, that could be the case. Skateboarders tend to be a rowdy lot. But they’re also a part of a social clique, which means they tend to have “cultural” differences with other youthful factions. It’s entirely possible someone from a rival group could have painted the park.

The idea behind the skate facility primarily was safety-oriented. It is named for a skateboarder who was killed when he was hit by a car while skating. It also was meant to cut down on the number of skateboarders practicing their craft (and damaging) private and public property.

So closing down the skate park, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to construct, doesn’t sound like the most viable option. City officials might even want to let the skate park users do their own “decoration” of the area, much in the same manner that some residential fences and commercial buildings have murals painted on them.

Understanding the reality of human behavior, no matter how reprehensible it can be, is the best way to cope with such disappointment.