A request to install security cameras at the Essex cenotaph by The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 201, was passed tonight at town council.
The move comes after $170,000 was invested to spruce up the cenotaph and create a memorial park last year, but it was then vandalized over the summer.
After learning that vandals smashed all the lights around the memorial park that he helped design for the Town of Essex, Dan Gray, Legion vice president, says he was hurt.
"The lights that were damaged were these ones right here, and the ones around the cenotaph itself. They shine up on the cenotaph at night."
The vandals caused about $1,200 worth of damage, but Gray says the real damage cuts much deeper.
"We had veterans here every day watching this be built. And the hurt that they felt, I don't want to see that again."
At the legion's annual general meeting in September a local vet came up with the idea of installing security cameras and Gray says "we don't know what to do other than that."
The legion estimates the costs of the security cameras will be around $7,000, but they aren't asking the town to foot the bill.
"We do have some money left in our memorial park fund," Gray says.
Mayor Ron McDermott says he's dealt with vandalism in other parts of town, but this is the first time the cenotaph has been targeted.
"You'd think that this would be sacred ground…we put some cameras up around the municipality and it's surely curtailed this stuff that's going on."
And that's why the mayor says he fully supports the legion using town property to install cameras.
"They are hurt. When something happens down here - that physically hurts these gentlemen."
