CENTERVILLE, IOWA -- A filthy public bathroom has one Centerville resident so livid that he sent KTVO gross images of what he saw on Sept. 9 in the Morgan Cline park bathroom.
Jeff Medina said the bathroom's toilet has been full of feces all summer and he's fed up. Medina said he has often had to drive to a nearby Casey's gas station, just so his nephew could use the bathroom.
"Once in awhile, you'd see them clean, and then another time, you'd see them built up and filthy as they could be," said Medina. "It's very unhealthy for children to have that much of raw sewage pretty much overflowing and running all over the place."
When Medina took his nephew into the bathroom this past Sunday, he said he saw "dirty sanitary napkins laying around, and feces smeared all over the toilet."
KTVO called Mayor Jim Senior the next day and informed him about the alleged dirty toilet. When we got to the park an hour and a half later, we found the mayor cleaning up the mess. We showed him the pictures submitted by Jeff Medina and he said that is what he saw before he started cleaning.
"It had been vandalized...somebody on purpose stuffed things down the toilet," said Senior. "Rags and that sort of thing. Very difficult to clean out, but we managed and cleaned it out. But it's just vandalism like any town would have."
Mayor Jim Senior said the park bathroom was supposed to be closed for the season after Aug. 20. He said he was surprised to find it open. Medina, on the other hand, said whoever is in charge of park maintenance needs to do a better job of making sure the bathrooms are kept clean.
"Id like to see more attention paid to these city parks," said Jeff Medina. "Since the children of the city play in this park everyday, sometimes even in the winter time, some one needs to keep a closer eye on this park because evidently someone dropped the ball. This has went on too long for this to happen like this."
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