“it’s a ghost town now”

“Dear PoPville,

About a month ago, there was a pretty heated debate about the rampant drug use and loitering in the “Chinatown Parks”.

I noticed the other night that all of the benches in the park at 6th and I St have been removed–and thus–seems to have generally solved the loitering issues (notice it’s a ghost town now). I walk past this park multiple times a week and Friday was the first time I noticed the benches were gone.

I’m curious as to if anyone knows when this happened, if it was indeed in response to the issues that occurred in this park and raised in the post from September, and if this is the city/police’s permanent solution to the issue or if it’s just a stopgap measure until something else is done.

I’m glad the park is generally cleaned up–if I had a dog, I’d feel much better about walking it here now–but it sucks that we have to forgo benches and seating to get to this point. I also feel like this just pushed the problem to some other park or public space instead of getting the people who frequented the park the help they need. But I guess this is why they say we can’t have nice things?”