Some residents in Ansonia feel that they will have to pay for someone else's poor decision - again. This, after a public sports park was targeted by vandals this week. Police said whomever used spray paint to deface the property at Nolan Park made an expensive mess and then fled the scene.
Investigators say sometime between sunset on Wednesday and sunrise on Thursday someone spray painted many of the doors, windows and walls of a recently renovated fieldhouse on Wakelee Avenue.
“People lack a moral compass if they do anything like this," said Melissa Haas, an Ansonia resident who was walking the track around the field on Thursday evening. “It’s very difficult to come up with the funds to keep this nice and I know the town tries and they’re working on it and something like this sets us back," said Haas.
In 2013, voters approved $110,000 worth of improvements for the fieldhouse. Some work was even being done on the structure this week.
“They keep it beautiful and it’s terrible and I hope they find whoever did it," said Carolyn Gardner of Ansonia. She said her family uses the park often.
In August of 2012, police said someone driving some kind of a vehicle ripped up $15,000 worth of the football field adjacent to the fieldhouse.
At that time, then-fifth grader Noah Wagnblas, who used to play on that football field, wanted to help.
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“I think I had to do something about it like raise money," said Wagnblas, who is now in 7th grade at Ansonia Middle School. Wagnblas said he donated a couple of hundred dollars he made by selling lemonade to help pay for repairs back then. He said he was upset about the new damage to this same facility.
“I don’t think they should do it again," he said.
Police said that they are looking for suspects and that they are also looking at the specific spray painted markings. Similar markings have appeared in other parts of the town as well, according to police.
“Now the town has to put money into this where the town should be putting money into our schools," said Haas. "It’s that kind of thing that really frustrates me as a resident.”
In order to clean up the graffiti, the brick areas will have to be sand blasted and all the doors and windows will have to be repainted. An estimate for how much that may cost is not yet available.
