drugs in the park

During the past three weeks, we have had increasing occurrences of students using and selling drugs, after school, on the south and west park walkways. The children tend to sit on the grass or on their skateboards for 15 - 20 minutes at a time. These areas are used primarily as their design limits sight from the park and the streets. Calls to the sheriff and direct confrontation have been less than effective.

To counteract this trend, I have adjusted to irrigation to wet those areas in the afternoons, shortly after school. Although the watering times are short, they are repeated, and are long enough to wet the grass and make it uncomfortable for furter drug related activities. No other areas of the park will be watered in the afternoon.

If you walk on the south or west walkways in the afternoons, you should not get wet as the sidewalks stay pretty dry. I would appreciate it if you recognize the children involved in drug activities to report them to their parents, the sheriff or me. I will be working with Bullard High to identify them as well, so we can contact the parents and have these activities removed from Tenaya Park.

Should you have other ideas of how to nip this in the bud, please feel free to call the park hotline, 228-3543 and leave me a message.