A Townsville councillor is fuming after vandals caused more than $200,000 of damage across her popular Townsville division over the last year.
Councillor Ann-Maree Greaney, whose division takes in popular beachside suburbs like Pallarenda, Rowes Bay, North Ward and Magnetic Island is now calling on community members with any information to contact police to help Council get to the bottom of the reckless damage.
“It’s absolutely heartbreaking to see the amount of damage caused across a number of suburbs in my division,” Cr Greaney said.
“It is just reckless vandalism, plain and simple and it’s costing ratepayers hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.”
Councillor Greaney said the type of damage had ranged from asset and property damage to reoccurring instances of graffiti with political slurs.
“In the last week we have had the Horseshoe Bay skatepark plastered in vandalism which included political slurs five nights in a row,” she said.
“Over the last year a number of beach accesses have racked up well over $100,000 in damages to beach taps for the community to use to wash the sand off their feet, irrigation systems, water mains and drinking fountains.
“This doesn’t include the two public toilet blocks at Robertson and Freemasons Parks which have had to have their plumbing completely re-done multiple times now, adding up to $75,000 so far.”
Councillor Greaney said Council invests millions of dollars in repairing and maintaining assets annually to keep them in a great condition for the community, but it was disgraceful to see some people were going out with reckless intent to damage public property for their own enjoyment.
“It makes me sick to my stomach that people can get away with this, and sadly in the end of the day it’s the ratepayers who end up missing out on other things to foot the bill,” she said.
“We already work closely with the Queensland Police Service and operate an extensive CCTV network to crack down on this behaviour and enhance community safety, but we want to hear from our community too.
“Council does not take this destruction of public property lightly and neither should our community. Someone, somewhere has to know or have seen something.
