NEWS RELEASE
June 10, 2021
For immediate release

Cold Lake, AB – The City of Cold Lake’s Energy Centre and Imperial Park were targets of extensive vandalism and graffiti last weekend.

The vandalism occurred in the early morning of Saturday, June 5. Several sites were vandalized including property belonging to the Northern Lights School Division’s Cold Lake High School, the Energy Centre building, baseball dugouts, maintenance sheds, walkways,  and Energy Centre and Imperial Park signage.

“This is especially concerning because of the scale of this act,” Mayor Craig Copeland said. “The public needs to recognize that this took our staff a significant amount of time and effort to clean up and fix, and the final cost when all the bills are in, will likely be much higher than one would guess. That’s money that could go into facility improvement rather than simply trying to repair needless damage.”

While there is still much work to be done, City staff were called in to work on Saturday, June 5 to remove much of the graffiti and begin to repair the damaged infrastructure.

“We are likely looking at tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage from this one event,” said Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Nagoya. “The graffiti was extensive and the damage will be costly to repair. We are thankful that our staff was able to get to it quickly, but this type of damage can easily lead to extended closures of recreational facilities. We are proud of the infrastructure that Council funds and want our residents to be able to take full advantage of it. We do not want to get to the point where this type of behaviour causes baseball games to be cancelled or the skateboard park to be shut down for an extended period while we do clean up and repairs.”

 The City of Cold Lake is asking the public to remain vigilant and to report any suspicious behaviour to police. Anyone with information about this or any other crime in the community should call the Cold Lake RCMP non-emergency line at 780-594-3302. In the case of an Emergency, dial 9-1-1. Anonymous tips can be submitted through Crime Stoppers at crimestoppers.ab.ca or by calling 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).

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