Healing Garden hit by vandalism

SANDPOINT - A wave of vandalism swept through Sandpoint over the weekend, causing thousands of dollars in damage and defacing one of the community's most sacred places.

Graffiti was spray painted on the walls of more than a dozen downtown locations, including the Healing Garden.

Located on the grounds of Bonner General Hospital, the Healing Garden is designed to give community members a peaceful place to reflect or grieve a loss, which makes the vandalism even more unsettling, said Healing Garden Committee Chairman Linda Plaster.

Plaster said the vandals targeted the garden's tea house and a stone entrance with indecipherable black-and-white markings. While she was able to remove the white paint, Plaster said the black markings have not responded to graffiti remover.

Cleanup and repair will cost several hundred dollars, but even more than the monetary loss, Plaster said she is disappointed by the lack of respect for a place that so many community members have come to count on in times of need.

"I'd like (the vandals) to come and clean it up and I'd like them to walk through the garden and see the people who go there. There are people from the hospital - people whose parents are in surgery or maybe they've lost someone. I'd like them to see how much it means to a lot of people," Plaster said.

As the CEO of Belwood's Furniture, Lori Stites has spent more than $1,000 in recent months removing graffiti from the walls of her business, but it wasn't until the Healing Garden was targeted that she decided to take serious action.

"People are pretty inflamed about this," Stites said. "I'm getting sick of painting my building and I'm getting sick of these punks. I don't want to be a town that's filled with graffiti. That's not what we're about."

Stites recently hosted the first of what she hopes will be many community meetings meant to develop a strategy to combat the vandalism. The group, which included representatives from the Healing Garden, discussed preventative measures such as installing more exterior lights and cameras and asking the police department for more patrol cars in the area. The group also hopes to come up with a reward for anyone with information that leads to the arrest of the vandals.

This weekend's events are only the latest in what Sandpoint Police Chief Mark Lockwood  calls a "rash of vandalism." Lockwood said the department takes the crimes very seriously and is investigating a number of leads in hopes of apprehending the criminals. In the meantime, Lockwood said business owners can take steps to minimize their chance of being vandalized.

"Adding lights always helps. If they are hit or targeted, the best thing they can do, immediately after we've photographed it, is to clean it off.  They need to get some graffiti remover or paint it, because if you leave it up it's just an invitation to do it again," Lockwood said.

Lockwood said anyone with information about the vandalism is urged to call the police department at 265-1482. Callers can remain anonymous.