Cameron County’s chamber director plans to ask the Emporium Borough Council about more security cameras at tonight’s meeting.
The action comes after some Christmas decorations were vandalized.
Steve Manginell says he spotted something strange on this street in the dark, early on Thanksgiving morning.
“I noticed that in the road, there was something laying in the road. It looked like three tires laying there, and I asked my wife to pull over so I could pull them off the road,” says Manginell.
As he looked around, he saw more damage. We got a picture of an insurance agent’s snowman that was missing its middle after being knocked over.
“The one park bench was flipped over and some of the other decorations, it looked like somebody had kicked them or they were knocked over,” says Manginell.
“It had been moved across the street and it had been dumped in front of our office right here,” says newspaper reporter Dave Gray.
And, the nearby radio station has since moved its decoration inside, after its Santa was taken away, and later found behind a nearby pizzeria.
A florist says she fixed two planters full of Christmas greens that were taken out near E. Fourth Street and Chestnut.
After using wreaths last year, the Chamber of Commerce contest this year used old tires to make the businesses more inviting. The deadline is Saturday to vote on the best one.
“They really went the extra mile with them and to see that somebody had such disrespect that they thought it would be funny to rip them apart and throw them into the middle of the street or rip out the decorations, it’s just really disheartening,” says Chamber director Tina Solak.
Solak says she really believes there should be more security cameras in this area to catch this type of activity.
“From Chestnut Street all the way to Maple Street needs to be covered,” says Solak.
She says it’s also dark at night without some street lamps that used to be there. She did a survey of where the camera gaps are, and also found out prices for an individual system.
“The small local businesses, they don’t have $400 to $700 to put into cameras and we’re hoping that maybe some of the gas Act 13 money could be used,” says Solak.
“If they put them up, once the vandals realize it, it might help. But they’re gonna have to catch a few people first,” says hardware store employee Denny Johnson.
Johnson is glad he decided to keep his two tire decorations inside due to weather concerns. The ones inside weren’t damaged by the vandals.
“It’s a shame something like that would happen,” says Gray.
“And, to try to make the town look nice and for somebody to come around and just destroy something like that, it just it makes no sense to me,” says Manginell.
The memorial bench will have to be repaired, and the Chamber got rid of its Christmas package made of tires after it was damaged, Solak said.