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WARREN — Pat Fuller, Friends of the Greenhouse Consortium executive director, reported to city officials Monday the disturbing vandalism of her volunteer work.
After hanging planters alongside the Women Veteranás Bridge on West Market Street last week, she re-visited Monday morning — and saw some of the handmade baskets were stolen or dumped into the Mahoning River.
Fuller, with former mayor Hank Angelo and Debbie Hayes, has run her local organization since the early 2000s. Hayes and her husband Paul also witnessed the vandalism and none were happy to see such blatant disregard for community property.
There were six total baskets, three on each side of the bridge, to start.
One was stolen from the Huntington National Bank side. From the opposite side, all three were stolen and one of the handmade metal baskets fell into the water below.
“This year we decided to dedicate more interest in the Women Veteran’s Bridge,” Fuller said. “So, we hung baskets up here. We’ve never done it before and I said I wasn’t going to, but I did. I had to work with three Trumbull County engineers in order to get permission.”
Friends of the Greenhouse Consortium offer an annual plant sale to the community, where tomatoes, peppers, herbs, a variety of bedding plants, hanging baskets and Motherás Day gifts are sold in spring at W.D. Packard Park Greenhouse.
After receiving all of its funding from the annual plant sale, the group also provides maintenance to many plantings in downtown Warren.
Fuller had gotten the baskets fabricated and secured with locks, with very specific requirements for use on the bridge.
“The flowers and flower boxes were expensive,” she said. “We’re probably talking thousands. We’ve had more vandalism this year than usual, I mean somebody took a machete to the canna lilies in front of the Huntington building. I think it’s just plain vandalism for the sake of destroying something.”
Fuller has reached out to Warren police Detective Brian Crites, made a police report and will request to view footage from a 360-degree camera near the bridge.