A Leesburg woman told the city commissioners at Monday night’s commission meeting of her negative experience renting a pavilion in Berry Park for a July 1 gathering.
Theresa Conner told the commissioners that she had rented the pavilion on June 26 and that she had been assured by the woman who took the application that the park area would be cleaned. She paid a $126 deposit for the July 1 date.
When Conner went to the park a 9 a.m. on July 1 she found several homeless people in the pavilion area and claimed that several of them were using drugs. The restrooms were filthy and trash cans had not been emptied. When Conner made contact with a park employee she was told that the park had been cleaned at 6:30 a.m. that morning. When she told the man that the bathrooms were filthy, he said that a homeless person had refused to leave the bathrooms to allow for cleaning. The homeless people vacated the pavilion when she posted her reservation for the area.
Conner went home and got her pressure washer and cleaned the bathrooms herself as well as the pavilion area and waste containers. She explained that she had friends and relatives coming to the park from Tallahassee, Orlando and Miami and she had to spend three hours cleaning in advance of using the park for her gathering. She gave the commissioners a bill detailing her work at $70 per hour.
“Berry Park should be treated like Ski Beach when it is rented out,” she said, adding that she should not have had to clean the facilities.
Ski Beach is located near the Venetian Center and has been a point of pride for the city.
Conner acknowledged that the city had refunded her deposit.
City Manager Al Minner promised to contact her regarding the incident.
