Over the weekend, the city of San Luis Obispo’s park maintenance team was alerted of vandalization at Santa Rosa Park leaving this grass field in ruin.
A city park employee discovered the damage Monday morning. According to the city, a driver jumped the curb in the parking lot at Santa Rosa Park, drove onto the field, and did 'donuts' in the outfield creating ruts in the grass.
“It's still an ongoing investigation and there's still we are still looking into all leads,” San Luis Obispo Police Department Sgt. Joseph Hurni said.
According to the department, no one was scheduled to use the recreational softball fields this weekend so the damage could’ve occurred earlier in the weekend without anyone noticing. However, Monday night’s adult recreation softball league had to cancel a few of their games due to the unsafe conditions.
“You hate to see people go out and do something like that," said Jeff LaFranchi, a recreation softball player. "We've only got so many facilities to work with."
LaFranchi has been playing in the softball league for the past 34 years and has seen how weather affects field availability but after this weekend’s field destruction, it makes playing the scheduled games even harder.
“We can't build domes for softball and there's only so much they could do to maintain the fields and try to keep them dry," LaFranchi explained. "The vandalism is a whole different story.”
The police department urges anyone who heard or saw anything in the surrounding neighborhood around the park to call their non-emergency phone line.
“Even pieces of information that feel insignificant, collectively can help us solve cases like this.”
In an email, Parks and Recreation Director Greg Avakian explained that the "good news is that none of the infields were impacted or touched" and that the use of these fields will be determined after the maintenance crew does work on the grass area on Tuesday.
