LULA — Lula officials are considering closing the city's public restrooms at night after a rash of problems in recent months.
City Manager Dennis Bergin said the city has three sets of public restrooms, including the most recent downtown restrooms installed near Lula Veterans Park. Some of the restrooms usually are closed during the winter, but this year's unseasonably warm temperatures have allowed the city to re-evaluate the annual closings.
"We've actually made some changes to open up some of those restrooms during the winter months when the weather is accommodating, but other than that we've experienced with our newest restrooms, unfortunately, vandalism," Bergin said.
During Monday night's city council work session, Bergin told council members about some of those issues, which are not isolated to the restrooms downtown.
"By the way, we've had these same problems down at the walking trails [restrooms], where unfortunately some people do things that they shouldn't be doing down there — indecent exposure is one," Bergin told the council. "We actually had one of our employees who witnessed a sexual act taking place down there. Another reason is we've had problems over the winter months with people using those as their bedrooms overnight. Similar to that, we're having issues in the Veterans Park."
The city's limited staff generally isn't on site after business hours, so Bergin has asked the Hall County Sheriff's Office to begin extra patrols of the facilities.
"It's frustrating for us because that's the type thing we can't manage very well, but as you know we've already had one fatality at the Veterans Park restrooms, which we think was attributed to elicit behavior, but I'm not speaking ill of the deceased," Bergin said. "But we've also had any number of times that we've found drug paraphernalia there, as well as we've had human feces thrown and placed on the walls, and this has been regular. In just the last month, drug paraphernalia has been found significantly. We think we've attributed that to either methamphetamine or cocaine. We've found hypodermic needles."
Bergin said city crews are in the restrooms at least twice each workday, so they believe incidents of abuse are occurring outside work hours.
"Most of those appear to be taking place after hours, and so it's a little hard for us to manage but with the cooperation of the Hall County Sheriff's Office we think the policing efforts on their part will help us get a better idea of who might be the evil doers for out there and certainly discourage that," Bergin said.
"Back in the first part of December we had a young lady that unfortunately met her demise there — at least she passed there," Bergin said. "I don't know all the details to it. We can't attribute that to any activity specifically."
Some council members said the city may have to re-evaluate keeping the restrooms open for those using the walking track or visiting Lula Veterans Park.
"I'll tell you, it's disheartening," Bergin said. "You don't want to let a few ruin it for everybody else, but this seems to be ongoing."
Councilman Garnett Smith and others expressed concerns over what's happening in the restrooms, as well as in the parks.
"I think we're going to have to get something done where those doors will get locked during the night," Smith said. "If we're putting up with this junk, we'd just as well close them."
Bergin said that after talking with Mayor Milton Turner, the city first wants to see if extra patrols by sheriff's deputies at the facilities will curtail the problems.
It's inevitable that someone other than a city employee will encounter some of the situations if the conduct is not stopped, Bergin said, adding, "We don't any of our constituents walking in on any of that stuff. That's the worst part."
