The recreation areas around Lake Mendocino have seen an uptick in vandalism in the last month, putting public access to recreation areas around the lake in doubt. The rash of vandalism has included graffiti on buildings, trees, tables, gates, cutting of combination locks, and repeated theft of signs and vehicle traffic counters.
People vandalized locks on the dam and restrooms, and all of the lake’s No Parking signs along Inlet Road have been torn down. The park also put portable toilets throughout Pomo A and Pomo B for people to use. However, those portables have been knocked over, filled with garbage, tagged, and had raw sewage leaking out.
“We have always had somewhat of a vandalism problem, it’s just really seen an uptick in the last four weeks or so. It seems like anything we put in the ground is removed,” Supervisory Park Ranger of Lake Mendocino Poppy Lozoff said.
The increased vandalism has a cost. Maintenance teams now have to spend time fixing broken locks and replacing vandalized equipment. Sewage pumping contractors have had to come in to deal with the public toilets due to the raw sewage on the ground, which can be a safety hazard.
Stealing visitation counters also affects the park’s budget. Lozoff said that a portion of their budget packages depends on visitation, so when people take their visitation counters, they can’t get an accurate read on visitors, hurting their ability to get funding. They have even put their visitation counters underground in boxes to try and make it more difficult for vandals without much success.
“I don’t really have a good lead on why people are doing it,” Lozoff said.
The vandalism led park rangers to close down an area last week temporarily, and Lozoff said if it continues they will temporarily shut down vandalized sections and possibly even the campground.
Park rangers patrol the areas around the lake, but they don’t have the numbers to cover it regularly. Anybody who sees something suspicious is welcome to call park headquarters and let park rangers know.
“A lot of people have grown up around here and have this great respect for it, and they want it to be this wonderful place,” Lozoff said. “We just need help doing that because when we have to deal with the tipped over port-a-potties and we have to put in extra purchase orders for our contractors to do work it takes time away from patrolling and all the other stuff I know the public wants us to do.”
The vast majority of people care about the lake and the community. The Ukiah Valley Trail Group helps maintain trails at the lake and the Pac Out Green Team also cleans up around public sites around the lake so that the public can use the lake as a recreation resource.
“We really appreciate all the people that take care of the lake and enjoy using it, and we want to include all the different user groups, and we want to continue to have a high visitation, and we don’t want to close areas,” Lozoff said.
