Vandals Cause $30,000 Damage to Moorpark Boys & Girls Club

In an office where the chair, desk and white walls have been splattered with gobs of electric blue paint, Toni Sarcinella buries her head in her hands as she answers phone calls Monday afternoon from concerned parents.

It took years to purchase the headquarters for the Boys & Girls Club of Moorpark on Casey Road, and more years to refurbish the place. But Monday morning, Sarcinella, the club’s executive director, discovered that vandals had broken into the split-level building over the weekend, destroying what she and others took years to build.

“This isn’t just my property or the board’s property, this is Moorpark’s property,” said Sarcinella, as she sat amid the ruin in the children’s recreational room. Toilet paper, aspirin and Comet detergent were strewn about the floor.

“The community should be outraged. This is an insult to every child in the community. . . . This doesn’t serve any other purpose than to hurt the kids in this town.”

Authorities said intruders broke into the club during the weekend and stole two computers, a printer and a phone, in addition to causing about $30,000 damage. The vandals left behind walls and furniture drenched in green, pink and blue paint, blew up children’s videocassettes in the microwave and plugged the sinks, leaving the floor covered by about 2 inches of water.

Police said the incident took place between 5 p.m. Friday, when the club closed its doors, and 7 a.m. Monday, when the first worker came to reopen the building. Sixteen police investigators from Moorpark and Thousand Oaks, as well as personnel from the Sheriff’s Crime Suppression Unit, are investigating the incident.

“It’s senseless, absolutely senseless,” said Ventura County Sheriff’s Senior Deputy Ed Tumbleson. “All of them have worked so hard to get this program for the kids and it’s taken so long to get where they are today. In a community where there are so few activities to get involved in, this is just a shame.”

Residents who have information are encouraged to call either the Moorpark investigators at 494-8220 or Crime Stoppers at 494-TALK.

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The Boys & Girls Club of Moorpark started out in a portable classroom at Chaparral Middle School on Poindexter Avenue in 1985. After years of fund-raising efforts, the club moved to the current site, where Moorpark High School used to be.

The club officials purchased the building from the Moorpark Unified School District in 1991 for about $450,000, and moved into the building the following year. The club serves an estimated 120 Moorpark children each day.

For several years they held more fund-raisers, spending more than $200,000 to renovate the building: converting the school’s old locker room into a recreation area, repairing the roof and the floor, buying matching furniture and new carpet and installing air conditioning and heating.

“We wanted the kids to know they’re the best and we wanted to give them the best,” Sarcinella said.

Sarcinella points to a plaque on the wall ruined by the splattered paint--an award from the national Boys & Girls Club. Out of the more than 1,850 Boys & Girls Club branches in the nation, Moorpark’s won the 1996 National Torch Club Award, the highest award given by the national club for service to the community.

Though police suspect the vandals may have been local teens, possibly gang members, that’s a theory that Sarcinella doubts.

She says gang members have been allowed to use the club and have always been respectful, often sending their younger siblings to the club as well.

“We’ve raised whole families of kids here,” she said. “This is their extended family. This is their extended home.”

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The club’s board president, Bruce Thomas, surveyed the damage and said as things look, the club would recover.

“We’ll rebound,” Thomas said. “Two steps forward, one step backward. That’s life.”

In the meantime, the club will be run in a portable building in a parking lot next to the club.