Editor:
I agree with Chris Barnhouse (Feb. 16).
I live near three beautiful parks here in town. I am tired of calling the police department complaining about the drunks in the park. In fact, I stopped calling and that helps nothing.
However, let me state that I am so very tired of picking up the trash they leave behind. I am so very tired of picking up clothing, bottles of booze, mouthwash, empty food packs and the like. I see others doing the same. I walk my dog early in the mornings, and groups sit at the picnic tables and talk at full volume and use the "f" word over and over in any one sentence they utter.
We have had to call the police at night because drunks were on our lawn yelling at nothing, leaving discarded clothing and all of the things mentioned above and then some, going to be the bathroom outside the buildings because they are locked in winter.
I have called the police to state that people are in the parks on these extremely cold winter mornings wrapped in blankets because they are freezing. I am told that the Bridge Shelter has them leave early and they sit in the park and wait for the Methodist Church to open for lunch three days a week. Sometimes they walk out after lunch and fall face-down in the park. Sometimes they simply fall over in the street.
I am sorry for the hardships they knowingly place themselves in. I am sorry that the reservations do not help since they are from their sovereign lands. But why do we have to live here and see and hear what goes on by our home and in such beautiful parks? Who wants to sit and relax when there's someone passed out on top of a picnic table, urinating against a tree, vomiting on the grass or yelling obscenities.
Why would a tourist stop when they can see these people face down in the grass on a beautiful summer day by the Welcome Center?
Where is their pride? Where is ours?
J.A. Keane
Cortez