Vandals destroy sign for senior center

A sign marking the future site of the Huntington Beach Senior Center has seen a lot of action in the last week. It has been bashed, scratched, cracked, had its frame bent — and that was just the first time around.

Huntington Beach Police received a call at 7:37 a.m. Feb. 22 reporting that the sign had been damaged — hit by a number of cement blocks discovered lying near it — and the frame broken, police said. City Public Works employees repaired the sign, replacing it Friday morning to its place in Central Park on Golden West Street.

It was untouched and in its place Friday, said Lt. Craig Junginger, who remembered seeing city workers reinstalling the sign as he was en route to Marina High School for the Every 15 Minutes DUI Simulation.

But at 8 a.m. Saturday, driving past the same spot, Junginger noticed the sign was not damaged — this time it was missing. In its place was an empty frame, he said.

"I had to do a double take," Junginger said. "Geez, I thought, they did it again."

Junginger called crime scene investigators to take photographs and filed a vandalism and theft report, he said.

The sign was later discovered in a pond near the library side of the park, Mayor Gil Coerper said Tuesday. Finding the sign beyond repair, municipal workers constructed a replacement, Coerper said.

This is not a case of random vandalism, both the city officials and police agreed.

"Just down the way there is a sign for Shipley Nature Center and then further down, the restaurant in the park, and those remain untouched," former Mayor Dave Sullivan said. "I think it's clearly about the senior center.

"I think it's outrageous. This is a democracy, and the public has already spoken — a vote was taken."

Coerper believes that if there are seniors against the new building, someone else is helping them.

"I don't think you're going to find seniors out there [who] oppose the center, trying to rip down signs and carry them away," Coerper said. "It takes somebody else that is more agile."

Coerper has put an item on next week's City Council agenda proposing that the city offer a $1,000 reward to find the people responsible.

"It's very childish," Coerper said. "If you will destroy a small sign, a small representation of the center, what are you going to do when the real building is there?"

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QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Should the city offer a $1,000 reward to help catch those who have vandalized the sign marking the future site of the senior center in Central Park? Call our Readers Hotline at (714) 966-4691 or send e-mail to hbindependent@latimes.com. Please spell your name and include your hometown and phone number for verification purposes.