The Shelton National Little League is looking to install video cameras at Riverview Park on Howe Avenue to help prevent vandalism there.
“There’s vandalism galore up there,” said Stanley Kudej, a volunteer for the little league and a member of the Board of Alderman and the Parks and Recreation Commission.
Kudej told the Parks and Recreation Commission last week that he is in the process of installing and hooking up cameras at Riverview Park.
He said the little league was paying for the cameras, which he would be able to monitor from home.
“We maintain our fields,” Kudej said of the little league. “And then we have to be faced with this stuff. It’s sickening at times.”
The group already outfitted the fields at Sunnyside School with cameras, Kudej said, which has cut down on vandalism there.
Riverside is particularly hard hit with graffiti because the park is situated in a way that makes it hard to monitor.
In 2008, racist and anti-semetic graffiti was found on the park structures as well as the War Veterans Memorial building in the park, according to a New Haven Register article from the time.
Police Chief Joel Hurliman said neighbors along Howe Avenue often can’t see if there are people in the park when they shouldn’t be, so the police department doesn’t get many calls about vandalism at Riverview in time to catch people.
“If people know there are cameras there, that pretty much puts an end to it,” Hurliman said.
Kudej said the cameras at Sunnyside cost about $6,000, but he wasn’t sure how much it would cost to do the same thing at Riverview.
Other towns have similar prevention methods.
Seymour, for example, is in the process of installing cameras in some of its parks to prevent vandalism.