Rainier City Council decries vandalism, explores solution

Rainier Mayor Robert Shaw decried the recent vandalism at Wilkowski Park during the city’s monthly council meeting on Tuesday, June 10.

The city leader didn’t stop there; he’s already exploring options to curb the issue.
“As you know, we got vandalized down at the Wilkowski shelter again,” Shaw told the council and audience members. “I’m not happy.”

The park bathroom has been a notable target for graffiti as well.

Shaw noted the city has received many positive comments about how the community is looking, only to have these acts continue to occur. The mayor praised public works for “working their rear ends off” and said city staff is fed up.

“I think we need to allocate some money and we need to light that place up down there and potentially put some more cameras in,” Shaw said, saying the city has been “hit at the bathrooms twice.”

“And now we go and repaint the shelter. If you haven’t been down there, they messed up the floor, the floor has to be repainted. They hit all the picnic tables, they hit the wall, the ceiling, you know, and I think the one way to discourage people is to light it up some more. It is pretty dark down there.”

Shaw said he met with an electrician the day prior to the council meeting to get some ideas about pricing and placement, which would include putting up another pole for lighting and adding extra lighting to the camera that faces the bathroom. The electrician also mentioned adding lights to the pole located at the front of the park; those lights would face the parking lot while providing illumination to the sport courts.

Shaw and Public Works Supervisor Theron Perry have also considered adding more cameras to the area.

“The two cameras up there right now, one faces the bathroom, one faces the shelter,” Shaw said. “But the thing that I’ve watched on the cameras … You don’t get to see, a lot of times, their face. The one on the bathroom was good because they got to go in the bathroom and they got to leave the bathroom.”

The problem with the vandalism that happened the other night at the shelter, Shaw said, is that they never were able to get a look at the people’s faces. According to Shaw, Perry suggested they add two more cameras to the pole in order to create a 360-degree view of people coming in.

The electrician also discussed the possibility of adding cameras closer to the shelter.

Perry said it’s not just about securing the shelter and bathroom with lighting and cameras.

“If you go far enough back there are homeless people living there, and we’ve had to drive homeless people out that are behind the shelter, because it’s dark and secluded back there,” Perry said. “To me, the more we light it up and the more we have cameras, it will mitigate that problem.”

Shaw estimated the cost of additional lighting and cameras to be roughly $15,000. To add the lights themselves, Shaw estimated costs of just under $8,000. To proceed, the council would have to amend the city’s budget. According to the mayor, the money would likely come from the city’s general fund.

Perry and the city council members expressed approval for the tentative plan.

“I think it’s pretty sad that what we’ve discovered is that the vandals are not from Rainier,” Councilmember Dennis McVey added. “They’re coming in from Yelm.”

In other news, the mayor updated the council on his plan to acquire Flock cameras for the city, saying that he and the mayors of Yelm, Tenino, and Bucoda, along with Thurston County Sheriff Derek Sanders, are trying to put together a grant with the Nisqually Indian Tribe.

Shaw said the plan is for Rainier to receive three cameras. Tenino would receive three, Bucoda would receive two, and Yelm would receive three added to their existing total. Thurston County would receive 20. Each camera, according to Shaw, would cost about $3,000.

“And our plan is to put the letter and request to the tribe (for) three-year funding for 35 cameras throughout the county,” Shaw said.

The mayor said that potential spots for the Flock cameras include one underneath the trestle coming into Rainier, one on state Route 507, and possibly one on Hubbard Road or going out to Vail.

Shaw said he would be able to provide more information at the next council meeting on July 8.