Neighbors nauseated by Flax Pond park users

LYNN – Living on Flax Pond offers them panoramic views and wildlife sightings, but Flax neighbors said nighttime and hot weather attracts vandals, litterers and people who use the pondside park as a toilet.Evelyn Santiago and her neighbors want police to step up patrols around Flax and post signs warning people to curb their behavior when they visit Magnolia Playground or the “splash pad” and ball courts off Chestnut Street and Towns Court.Santiago, a 10-year Towns Court resident, blames rock-throwers in the park for rupturing her above-ground swimming pool and sending water gushing downhill to the pond. She said vandals toss rocks over her fence bordering the pond’s Chestnut Street end and said they stole items from her tool shed.”I’ve taken out rocks that have been thrown over the fence, sticks and candy wrappers. They are very disrespectful,” she said.Santiago and Christine Harkness are among five residents who own homes at Flax next to Chestnut Terrace and Towns Court, a dead-end lane bordering tennis courts next to the pond. The homes face a corner of the park where Harkness said her home and her neighbors’ have been plagued by rock-throwers and individuals who urinate on homeowner’s fences.”Little kids pee on the fence. I yell out, ?This is not a bathroom.’ I’ve heard rocks bounce off the air conditioner,” she said.Santiago and a dozen other Flax Pond neighbors, including Magnolia Avenue and Carter Road residents, voiced their complaints to City Council members Tuesday night after pushcart food vendor Desiree DeVirgilio asked the council for permission to operate her car on Magnolia Avenue.Residents told councilors the cart would add to a trash problem already annoying pond residents. DeVirgilio withdrew her request, but Santiago and other residents said the city must deal with rats, which they said are attracted to trash left in the parks.Trash barrels dotted Flax playground off Towns Court on Thursday, and the park underwent city improvements in 2011, said Community Development assistant facilities manager Michael Murray, when the Flax “splash pad” and new playground equipment were built in the park and a fountain installed in the pond.Santiago said charred wood she found next to her fence is evidence of a Flax park bonfire that could have proven disastrous for the neighborhood. Harkness appreciates the city improvements, but said they must be matched with ongoing maintenance and supervision.”They make it look really pretty and nice; it’s frustrating,” she said.Until the mid-1990s, Murray said someone hired by the city kept an eye on pond swimmers and people who rented paddle boats. The round, stone building off Towns Court and the bathrooms inside it were open to the public, but the building is now closed. It houses the electronic controls and pumps for the splash pad – a fountain designed for youth-oriented hot weather fun.Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy said she is aware of Flax neighbors’ complaints but said “it would be prohibitively expensive” to reopen the stone building and assign someone to work there. For now, she said, portable toilets are “the best alternative.”Murray said the building cannot be reopened without a city worker on site to deter vandalism.”The (splash pad) controls are worth thousands of dollars. With people coming in and out of there and no one in there, it would be nightmare,” he said.Santiago credited Ward 1 Councilor Wayne Lozzi for listening to neighbors’ concerns but said more must be done to help them.”I’ve had enough of this,” she said.Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].