WTF – are you serious?

 

How else do you say it?

The Municipality of Wawa employees, EDC staff, everyone who worked so hard to envision, source the funding and bring to life the current waterfront enhancements must be so upset. And that is probably a huge understatement. It has been difficult with the beach sand sifting and other work that has been cramping our waterfront use – but things were looking so good. Many Wawa residents who take their elderly out for a stroll with their wheelchairs from the LDHC Long Term Care, and many parents who were also looking forward to using their strollers with the kids to venture from Lion’s Beach to Dr. Rose’s Beach. Sitting on the clean beach, enjoying the new longer dock – you can actually divebomb off of it!

Until last night… Vandals struck!

The beautiful boardwalk that is being installed by a local contractor was vandalized. The Municipality has not yet issued a media release – this photo was found on facebook via a post by Daniel Belisle looking for information about the vandals.

It also looks like a vehicle may have been driving in the new bioswale at the bottom of Wawa Street.

This project was funded by your taxpayer monies! If you didn’t realize it – here are the facts. Provincial and federal taxes all create pools of money from which municipalities apply to and when they are successful in getting funding; leverage our municipal taxes with that pool to create projects like this.

However, those funds do not cover vandalism.

YOUR taxpayer dollars will have to pay staff to landscape again, and repair that section of boardwalk so that people can walk the beach and enjoy.

Wawa has a terrible history of vandals ruining things. For example, the ATV’s and trucks destroying the grass at Magpie High Falls, the wanton destruction of the Grandma Doors, flowerboxes along Broadway Avenue, snowmobilers driving through the Margaret Mary Cemetary. That beautiful fence is there to protect the gravestones from the snowmobiles, and as an added bonus looks beautiful.

We all say that Wawa could look better – but this has to be so devastating to those who brought this project to life. It’s your turn to make this right and stop the senseless destruction of our town.

If you have any information, do let the police know. You can call Crime Stoppers via their anonymous telephone line (705-942-7867 or 1-800-222-8477).