City Insider reports:
On Jan. 28, two tractors that were used to construct the park’s playground — a $3 million renovation — were discovered damaged at a cost of up to $20,000, said Connie Chan, a spokeswoman for the city’s Recreation and Park Department.
In addition, branches on up to three medium-sized trees were cut, glass on three lampposts was smashed and 20 to 30 plants ready to be installed were thrown around, all at a cost of up to $5,000, Chan said. A gardener discovered the damage around 6 a.m. that Saturday.
The tractors were removed from the site and much of the damage was cleaned up, Chan said. This morning, vandals struck again, damaging the replacement equipment, she said.
Chan fears this may be some sort of organized effort. And it’s working because the playground is no longer expected to open on time. Read on. (Thanks, Herr Doktor Professor Deth Vegetable.)
fucking morons!
seriously people…come ON!
These assholes need their jaws broken.
who, the insurance scammers? how is this not obviously a shakedown? i’m sure it’s standard practice to get the tractors the hell out of there before announcing the $20K tragedy.
break hands not jaws
I’m a complete asshole and would not even do this. Fucking lame.
There’s a Chinese New Year float sitting out in front of City Hall and when I walked through the empty plaza yesterday, there were TWO security guards watching it. The city can’t spare a guard to keep an eye on the construction site?
By the time that Puppet Lee gets permission from Puppet-master Pak, it’ll be the Year of the Parakeet.
Exactly my thought. They would have saved a ton of $$ by hiring a security guard or two.
Absolutely disgusting. These idiots should be forever banished from San Francisco.
What happened to civility?
my fear is that the day this gets finished some assclown taggers are going to hit it
You think they’d wait for it to be finished? There was quite a bit of graffiti already when I walked by on Saturday.
The ass-clowns you’re talking about already tagged it. How about a little community shaming of the taggers rather than community lionizaton (MissionMission!)
Exactly. I hate it when MissionMission or some other hip urban blog (like Bernalwood) wants to show off some urban graffiti and call it art.
Fuck that. it’s not art, it’s vandalism.
Painting over a boarded up store front is quite a bit different than tagging a brand new playground. One is changing the neighborhood in a meaningless (but potentially interesting) way, the other is purely mean spirited and egotistical.
I’m glad you said the word “meaningless”,cause that says it all.
Also, there’s a big difference between painting/tagging a concrete structure (which has no effect on its intended use) and smashing lamps, destroying equipment, etc. — which impairs intended use of the structure in a meaningful way.
The death penalty needs to be more liberally applied.
People are jerks.
Snipers.
The hill in the center has already been tagged, although I’m not sure if it’s supposed to get another layer of paint or not.
Damned assholes!
OK – how many people will volunteer to stand guard, say in three-hour shifts until the installation is complete?
Let’s have a show of hands: I see, Madison, Taylor, Blake, Josh, Cash, Slutty Anne, Sean, Aggie, and Creepy Kyle. Allan Hough, are you in?
Bring your bumbershoots; it supposed to start raining tonight.
Hipsters can only stand guard with pabst blue ribbon. They run at the first sign of trouble! They only complain and annoy.
Woah! The blog mob has voiced its rule: bring the pitchforks!
Hey, I have kids and am pro-playground, but the vandalizing makes me think: some people are not happy with the construction, not, let’s get violent. OK, maybe it was just drunk kids on a Friday night destroying machines OR maybe someone thought, “this looks a big concrete turd in our park.”
I can’t really weight in until the project is complete, but it does look a tad like a giant concrete pile of turds. The 1% (rich people) use this playground (Alta Plaza Park):
http://g.co/maps/s429v
which is AWESOME! Sometimes I drive my kids over there, drink my luke warm coffee carted over from the Mission, and look down from the hill onto the city.
I do hope the playground is as awesome as that one, but right now it looks a little bit like concussionland with all the concrete.
You realize damaging the equipment means it’s going to look more like a turd and less like a playground for a lot longer, right? Yeah, it sucks, but why go out of your way to slow it down even more?
I think the point was that it’s sort of fucking insane to think breaking jaws or the death penalty is an appropriate response to vandalism.
Vandals tagging: Infraction. Vandals killing trees: Felony(In my book). Differnet kinds of Vandals, but Joe Citizen usually wants to chop off all their hands and let god sort ‘em out.
The only difference between a felony and a misdemeanor is the amount of time the max sentence can carry (under or over six months). This is certainly a felony, albeit a minor one, because of the amount of damage alleged.
Most felonies like this will be plead down if it’s the offender’s first conviction. California has pretty strict restitution statutes and, if caught and convicted, the offender will likely have a restitution judgment attached to the conviction for the amount of the damage. This is how a civilized system of justice should work. Those of you calling for corporal or capital punishment would be more at home in Fallujah than the Mission.
Hey “truth” — nothing to say regarding the “Super Bowl plans?” postings?
I never went back and read it. Were they good? Did the community rally around the downtrodden bloggers?
Why don’t ya wait for it get finished before you mouth off about what you don’t like?
Troll.
concussionland +1