WINDHAM – Three weeks after the Windham Town Council eliminated staff supervision at the skate park, Town Manager Town Tony Plante presented a slide show Tuesday night to town councilors documenting several acts of vandalism and the failure of the youth skateboarding community to police itself.

The Windham Parks and Recreation Department has provided a full-time park supervisor since the park opened more than 10 years ago on town-owned property beside the Windham Public Safety Building on Route 202. Despite pleas from parents and skaters, the council cut the position due to budget concerns. As a result, the park has gone unsupervised since July 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

According to Plante, the first week of July produced no objectionable behavior. However, during the past two weeks, burglars broke into both a storage shed and the concession stand, stealing $300 from the stand, he said.

Additionally, ramps that were originally purchased for the construction of an anticipated BMX bike park have been moved onto the skateboarding course from their storage area around the perimeter of the park. Plante displayed photos of litter, cigarette butts and empty soda bottles on the ground, which he said show a disregard for trash buckets in the picnic area.

The park closes at dusk. Despite its location next to the police and fire station, twice in the past week a padlocked electrical box was hacked and lights turned on to illuminate unauthorized night skating.

“It’s discouraging and disappointing that some people have so little respect for a community asset. We certainly had problems when the park was supervised, but I don’t recall anything like this. We didn’t have problems like this before,” Plante said.

During the council’s May 28 meeting, parents and skaters – as well as councilors Tommy Gleason, David Nadeau and Dennis Welch – expressed concerns that eliminating paid staff supervision of the skate park would lead to problems such as vandalism. However, during that same meeting, the council voted 4-3 to end the $17,000 annual supervisory position, concluding that the money was needed elsewhere in the budget and that the youth community would “police itself,” as councilors Matt Noel and Peter Anania predicted.

Councilor Scott Hayman, who also favored self-policing, said, “If a kid wants to get his ball and glove or his soccer ball and go to the field or his basketball and go to the court, does he need to be supervised once he’s there?”

But ball sports, which rely on comparatively little apparatus, do not require the use of a helmet or involve ramps that send skaters several feet into the air.

“We didn’t have these issues when it was staffed,” Welch said Tuesday.

Police and public works staffers plan to collaborate to remove the electrical box and disconnect electrical service at the park, and police are actively seeking leads to apprehending the vandals, Plante said.