Business owners' complaints increase concerning youth at People's Park

As development in Bloomington moves west, downtown businesses work to attract and maintain consumers. \nPart of an ongoing plan that revitalized Kirkwood Avenue last year included the renovation of People's Park.\nWhile businesses are happy with the new downtown, concerns remain that those hanging out in People's Park and on Kirkwood might discourage visitors from enjoying downtown. \n"Businesses are calling us complaining about people who are hanging out in the park and on Kirkwood causing problems for people," said Captain Mike Diekoff of the Bloomington Police Department.\nBut some Bloomington youth workers like Erin O'Shea, a volunteer youth outreach worker for the Shalom Community Center, said the youth hanging out in People's Park are not necessarily a problem. \n"This has always been a spot for that subculture of our youth that feel like they've slipped through the cracks," he said. "They band together in order to feel like they have a family. A lot of these kids out here are each other's family. For kids out there without hope, it's a safe place for them to come."\nBloomington Police Department records show police responses to People's Park increased nearly 40 percent since it reopened last May, but more than half of the time, no official action was taken. \nDiekoff said while it is difficult to pinpoint the reason for the increased number of police stops at the park, businesses' concerns are a factor.\nSuspicious persons, vandalism, disturbances, loud parties and drugs form the bulk of the reasons people call police, according to BPD records since May. \nAll of these drive consumers away, and that is what downtown businesses want to stop.\nTalisha Coppock, executive director of the Commission for Downtown Bloomington, works with downtown businesses. She said she realizes that People's Park has always attracted people with different thoughts and issues, and she believes businesses respect that. But it becomes a problem when there is illegal activity, she said. \nBusinesses close to the park declined to comment on whether they have called police about goings on at the park.\nJunior Adam Brumm lives across from People's Park on Dunn Street. He said he has noticed that Tuesdays, when the parks department has concerts, a wider variety of people use the park, but usually it is the same crowd that hung out there before the renovations. \n"It looks a lot nicer," he said, "but they have a lot of the same situations over there."\nBrumm said he called police when people from the park climbed the fire escape on his building to smoke marijuana.\nAlthough he said he has been verbally harassed and even spit at when walking through the park, he tries to avoid conflict with park users. \n"They stay in the park, and I stay over here," Brumm said from the steps of his building.\nBrad Wilhelm, youth director at Rhino's All Age Music Club, questioned the assumptions about the kids hanging out in the park.\n"I'm not saying there's not kids drinking when they're supposed to be, or there might be drug dealing going on down there," he said. "But there's drug dealing going on at high school football games. There's drug dealing going on at churches."\nWilhelm said he believes the park is a place for kids who for one reason or another do not fit into more traditional youth programming. \nO'Shea said he saw the vandalism that took place soon after the park reopened as the work of "little kids," who need an outlet for their energy. He has tried to create a positive outlet by providing board games for them to play in the park. So far, he said, everyone has respected and appreciated the games. O'Shea's involvement with the youth is personal because as a Bloomington native, he himself hung out in the park as a teenager. \n"I used to be one of these kids," he said, "but now I've got things I'm doing with my life. But I still consider them kin." \nO'Shea said he believes understanding would help alleviate some of the tension felt between those who hang out in the park and those who don't.\n"When people don't understand something, they label it and fear it," he said. "They don't get to know it"