Public's eyes needed to help stop Island vandals

By David Ball
The Port Arthur News

PORT ARTHUR May 14, 2008 10:47 am

— It happened yet once again.
Two fishing piers on Pleasure Island were burned due to vandalism in what Jimmy Dike, Pleasure Island Commission director said sadly is an annual occurrence. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported it to Dike last week. Since then, the piers are boarded off to the public until repairs are made.
“They were burned down to the water and the pilings will have to be pulled and re-driven. The front pier piling and the second pier piling were burned. It happens a lot more than the public realizes,” Dike said.
Dike has been the Pleasure Island director for the past 15 years and said the piers are set on fire probably once a year. He believes the vandals burn the piers for three possible reasons:
• Out of meanness.
• The mosquitos are bad and they build a fire to keep them away.
• They built a fire to stay warm.
“I try to give people the benefit of the doubt (for starting the fire). The piers are so remote; they’re seven miles down a road. You can strip a car out there because it’s so remote,” he said. “There’s a lot of illegal dumping, too. We know when people get a new couch because the old one is left out here, or when someone’s washing machine is broken because it ends up here. We have a lot of building material dumped out here like shingles, wood and metal. It’s expensive to dump it.”
Most residents who live on the island, however, don’t have the problems with vandalism and thievery, according to Dike. It’s just property off the beaten path.
Another sore spot is vandalism in the public restrooms on the island.
“We have graffiti in the restrooms. We can’t paint them everyday,” Dike said. “I estimate last year, vandalism cost us $8,000. You have to figure my guys go into overtime to take care of it. It’s a constant battle.”
Some of the casualties of that constant battle are sinks dismounted from the wall and then stolen. Lighting and wiring stolen and toilet paper constantly missing, stuffed down the toilet or thrown all over the restroom. Port-a-potties at the fishing piers were destroyed and are no longer used. And to add insult to injury, feces is often left on the floor.
He added that the graffiti mainly consists of gang symbols and gang numbers. Some are very talented with a spray can, yet only to see their work disappear when workers cover them with paint.
What Dikes is asking is for the public to be aware of what’s going on and to report what they see.
“We need to do the right thing and teach kids to do the right thing,” Dike said. “This is a public island — it belongs to the people who use it. It’s the most heavily used park in Southeast Texas. It’s nothing we can give up on and let a few bad apples win out here.”

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