UPDATES ON EAST BANK TRAIL AND ON CONVICTED MARIJUANA GROWER

I will never understand the need that some ill-bred boneheads have to
commit vandalism.

It's as if they can't stand to have nice things around them. Or perhaps it
makes them feel powerful if they can deprive others of the pleasure they
might get from nice things in the community.

Take the East Bank Trail in South Bend. I wrote on July 18 about the way
the city has almost completed the northern part of the trail by finishing a
link between the Madison Center complex and Howard Street. The work also
included improvements to a portion of the trail north of there, from Howard
Street to Angela Boulevard.

Improvements included more ways to enter or leave the trail, as well as
improved lighting and drinking fountains.

Well, it didn't take long for the vandals to strike. While finishing
touches still are being applied to the trail, someone came along and
spray-painted graffiti on one of the scenic overlooks. Much worse than
that, on July 24 they smashed virtually all of the light fixtures along the
trail north of Howard Street.

Larry Camparone, the city's project engineer for the trail, said 14 light
posts, known as bollards, were damaged. Twelve of them had the light bulbs
knocked out, and two were knocked over and destroyed.

What kind of muddleheaded thought went into that kind of activity? Would
one of the perpetrators like to explain it to me?

"It just amazes me the extent they had to go to to knock down those
lights," Camparone said. A few of the bollards had their tops knocked off,
and "it's not a simple task" to do that.

He can't figure out what they might have used to knock over two of the
posts, or what kind of tool they used to smash the lights, which were made
of very thick glass. He speculated that the lights may have been shot out
with a gun.

In addition to the vandalism of the lights, the thugs also destroyed the
electrical control box near the Leeper Avenue bridge.

Given the force that was needed to do all that damage, he is surprised that
nobody heard the vandalism while it was occurring.

The bollards cost $695 each, including installation and wiring. Camparone
said he hasn't come up with a damage estimate yet. He also is trying to
figure out whose insurance will be liable for a claim. Since the East Bank
Trail improvements are not quite done yet, the contractor has not turned
the project officially over to the city.

Regardless of who ends up paying, the damage will be repaired as quickly as
possible, Camparone vowed. He couldn't say when that will happen. Since the
lights are not a stock item for the supplier, they will have to be ordered.

Camparone said city officers on bicycles patrol the trail regularly, and
park police also keep an eye on it.

It's a shame that nobody saw or heard anything on July 24. Perhaps people
on or around the trail need to be more vigilant in the future.

We can't let the thugs win.

Updating another issue, a local marijuana grower ended up in jail on July
25 after receiving the maximum sentence allowed under a plea agreement.

Bruce A. White, 44, of South Bend, will serve six years in custody for
growing marijuana in his York Road home on South Bend's south side. He
seemed both surprised and distressed as county police slapped handcuffs on
him and led him from the courtroom.

I wrote of White's case in a column on July 11 about how drug dealers are
treated once they get to court.

Police paid a visit to his home on June 19, 2001, and found drug
paraphernalia and about 50 marijuana plants growing in a hydroponics
solution. The plants would have yielded between 5 and 10 pounds of weed.

"That's a lot of cash crop," Superior Court Judge Jerome Frese noted at
White's sentencing hearing.

White tried to convince Frese that he is a changed person who is trying to
put his life back together. He said he is trying to take care of his family
while dealing with a serious illness.

To say that the prosecutor's side was skeptical would be an understatement,
said Ari Telisman, deputy prosecutor. He read a laundry list of White's
prior convictions, both misdemeanors and felonies, many of them drug-related.

Frese also mentioned White's "horrendous criminal record," consisting of
almost two dozen arrests, half of them for drug or alcohol offenses. Frese
sentenced White to 10 1/2 years, then suspended 4 1/2 years because the
plea agreement had called for a maximum prison term of six years.

Frese ordered White to go directly to jail until space becomes available
for him in DuComb Center, a community corrections program. While
incarcerated there, White is to get and keep a job, Frese said.

He should have time now to think about straightening himself out.