Vandalism plagues Peninsula

On the early morning hours of Monday Feb. 20, a Peninsula parent finished a run on the track and walked through campus. She was met with obscenities, insults and taunts scrawled across the grounds with spray paint.  The damage, which occurred sometime between Sunday Feb. 19 and early Monday morning, was the latest of three separate vandalism incidents.  The previous two took place in November and January.  While the investigation is still in progress, many students and staff continue to feel the impact that the vandalism has caused.

“It’s disappointing to see that something could happen to a school that’s usually so safe,” freshman Shreya Ramayya said.

Head custodian Al Liwag was the first person to witness the graffiti of the first two incidents at 5 a.m., when he starts his shift.

“[The vandalism] has caused a lot of work and money,” Liwag said. “It is not good for the new students who come to our school.  I am frustrated at what is going on; the graffiti is very overwhelming.”

In addition to the large amount of graffiti, the clean-up costs of the vandalism have been overwhelming to the school’s budget.  Each incident cost the school about $5,000.

“Each of [the incidents] had varying degrees of really big problems,” Principal Mitzi Cress said.

The first vandalism incident required special costly cleaning fluids to clean the track, so it would not get ruined.

The panther statue at the front of the campus was a large casualty of the second break in.

“[After the middle incident,] it took six hours to clean the panther,” Cress said. “It took a lot of extra chemicals and work.”

The third occurrence happened at the beginning of furlough week, so the painters were off on vacation.  They had to be paid overtime to be brought in and paint over the graffiti.

Many throughout the district have been affected by the vandalism. Palos Verdes High School’s principal, Nick Stephany, sympathizes with Peninsula.

“It is a sad and maddening series of events that have disappointed school officials across the district,” Stephany said. “It is seriously upsetting that the limited resources we have must go to cleaning up after these acts and catching the people responsible.”

Cress reasons that one explanation for the sudden rush of vandalism is the absence of Jerry Roby, a former night guard who unexpectedly passed away on Oct. 22, 2011.

“[Roby] would wander the campus; he was like an owl,” Cress said. “People knew he was here, and I think there was that fear factor, and I think that really, really made a difference.”

The administration is currently working on solutions to keep the school more secure.  The alternatives, however, have high price tags.

“We are looking at all options,” Cress said. “When we feel that there is high probability [of vandalism], we are hiring contract security people to be here.  But you can’t guess all the time. It cost $180 a night to hire private security.  That’s a lot of money.”

Although the vandalism resulted in extensive damage to the school, the administration has been able to keep its priorities of educating kids in a safe and clean environment.