Kids will be kids

Published 1:55 pm Wednesday, June 19, 2013

At Fourth and M Street Southeast, the City is working hard to improve traffic flow and ease congestion in our community. Meanwhile, neighborhood kids are working hard at vandalizing the freshly poured concrete.

As a resident and taxpayer in the neighborhood I was pleased with the idea of having new sidewalks poured in my neighborhood. The night after Scarsella Bros. had the concrete sidewalks poured, presumed kids preceded to write whatever they wanted in the fresh concrete. I witnessed a kid walk around the “sidewalk closed” sign and walk a good 15 feet down the sidewalk before he trampled out of it and wiped the concrete off his shoes. Someone else decided they would ride their bike through it.

The other day a crew of several workers spent hours patching up and repairing the damage the vandals caused. As frustrating as it is for me to see this happen, I feel helpless.

Kids will be kids. Maybe someday, once they start paying taxes, they will realize what all this damage costs. A sign or road cone isn’t going to stop these kids from vandalizing our sidewalks. We need to prevent them access to the tempting wet concrete.

Scarsella, wouldn’t it have been much cheaper to rent a fence and encase the sidewalk rather than pay a full crew a days wages to patch the concrete? Hire a security guard?

By the way, the bicycle tire tracks are still there. I guess us taxpayers are stuck with those. Thanks.

– Ryan Georgi