On Friday, City of Bridgeport workers teamed up with workers from Capital City Crane out of Columbus, Ohio to install the new pre-fabricated concession stand building at City Park. On Sunday, the brand new building was already vandalized.

 

According to Bridgeport Parks and Recreation Director Don Burton, the main storage door for P&R equipment and materials, which is a set of double doors on the front part of the building, saw someone scratch into it.

 

“There were letter scratched into the door and letters scratched into it as well,” said Burton. “It looks like it was done with a rock, a bolt or some kind of very sharp object.”

 

Burton and Parks staff have dealt with vandalism multiple times in recent years. This may be vandalism or it could be inadvertent vandalism where a child may have been unattended and did it. The reason for that line of thought from Burton is that this didn’t happen during the evening or overnight hours.

 

“It happened likely between 8:30 a.m. and no later than 2:42 p.m. Our worker there on Sunday didn’t see it in the morning and I was then notified at 2:42 p.m. that it happened,” said Burton. “There was a lot of activity there, which we hope somebody saw something and will let us know.”

 

Burton said there were travel baseball teams, basketball being played and the rental of pavilions during the day. He said there was plenty of activity despite it being a cool day.

 

“We’re totally bummed to see this. You have it up for a day and a half and you have to try and repair it,” said Burton.

 

Burton was having his staff to sand it and hope that it will take care of the problem. He said it is possible that it could be all the way down to the metal, which could result in more significant costs to make repairs.

 

The building was done by CXT. They had the low bid on the project at $65,602.

 

If anyone has information on the damage to the building, they can contact the Bridgeport Police office tip line at 304-842-6149.