BLOOMSBURG — Someone set fire to an item inside a park pavilion overnight Friday, damaging a bench and frustrating town laborers who had already spent part of the week cleaning up messes made by vandals.

Public Works Director John Fritz said the latest act of vandalism could have burned down a pavilion next to the lagoon that has been in the park for 45 years.

A small fire set overnight burned through a built-in bench and appeared to have been from something plastic being set on fire. The cap from an aerosol can was on the ground next to an abandoned bicycle and a charred Mountain Dew can.

“This is escalating,” Crew Chief Wade Creasy said Friday morning as he gathered up possible clues: The purple Huffy bicycle and a pair of black inline skates.

“There has got to be accountability,”

Police officer finds latest damage

“Someone tried to burn down the pavilion,” Fritz said Friday morning.

Bloomsburg Police Officer Evan Lingousky was patrolling the park around 3 a.m. when he found the fire’s remains, Police Chief Scott Price said.

Creasy said Lingousky was shining a spotlight through the park from Catherine Street he saw a glint of something inside the pavilion.

Thinking he spotted someone, Lingousky went down to the pavilion and found the remains of the fire along with the bicycle, skates and an aerosol can, Creasy said.

Whoever set the fire had already left and there are no cameras in that area of the park.

Police then notified Fritz, who has been vocal about his frustrations with ongoing vandalism in the park.

Creasy collected the skates— size 5-8 Bladerunners — and the bike and took them to the Public Works building Friday morning.

He is hoping anyone who may have been in the area and seen something — or knows who did it — to call Bloomsburg Police: 570-784-4155.

‘It is a game’

Creasy has worked for the town for 27 years; in the last five years damage caused by mischief in the park has gotten worse, he said.

Two years ago he spotted four children on the roof of another pavilion peeling off and throwing shingle tiles. When he approached them they ran off.

Creasy has lost count of the number of times he has had to remove graffiti from the pavilions.

“It is a game and you have to catch them red-handed,” he said.

On Tuesday, Creasy had to unplug a bandshell bathroom toilet, which had been stuffed with toilet paper. He also had to clean feces spread on the floors and walls. The paper towel holder had also been ripped from the walls, Fritz said.

Cameras installed at bandshell last year caught a few people in the area that night — but without seeing evidence of mischief, police cannot charge any of them, Creasy said.

“We know who is going in but we don’t know who did it,” he said.

Last year Creasy removed picnic tables and trash cans from the Reimard Pavilion near the lagoon, where Friday’s fire was, because people kept spray painting them and burning the trash.

“What do we do next, Remove the pavilion?” Creasy asked. “The benches are built in.”

He said the pavilion was once popular for weddings and family evenings because it is next to the scenic lagoon.

“I don’t know who is going to use it now,” he said.

Creasy estimated it would take him several hours to buy, paint and replace the boards — time he should have been spending doing road repairs or mowing the grass.

He did not have an estimate on what the latest damage would cost the town to fix.

“There is no budget for vandalism,” Creasy said.

M.J. Mahon covers Bloomsburg; she can be reached at 570-218-7536 or mj.mahon@pressenterprise.net.