Residents in Regina are outraged after vandals set fire to the city’s only fully-accessible playground structure early Saturday morning.
Police have pegged damages at the Rick Hansen Optimist Playground in A.E. Wilson Park at $25,000. The north side of the playground is too damaged for anyone to use. Most of the paint has been blackend by the flames and a wheelchair-assessible ramp melted from the heat.
“I just heard the news yesterday,” said Jacqueline Tisher, the executive director at Hope’s Home, a daycare for medically fragile children.
“I got the call, and I was quite surprised and just sad that would happen to one of the few accessible playgrounds that we do have in this city.”
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Hope’s Home staff relied on the playground as one of the few options to take wheelchairbound children to play outdoors. Tisher said they will now have to rely on the Wascana Rehabilitation centre’s playground while repairs are done.
This isn’t the only time vandals have tarnished A.E. Wilson Park. City officials are in the process of replacing all wooden benches, after vandals repeatedly used the wooden ones to make bonfires. The park’s wooden fence also had to be replaced with a chain link one so the park could be better monitored.
City officials say they are working with a playground supplier to see how soon they can get staff to Regina to repair the structure.
The good news is the city was planning on adding a second fully-accessible playground at Gocki Park sometime in September, so while the playground supplier works to create a new structure, they will also likely be able to repair the Rick Hansen playground. The newest structure is scheduled to open in mid October.
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