Damage at Winter Wonderland installation in William F. Moore Park (Council Member Francisco Moya)
Dec. 7, 2020 By Allie Griffin
A winter wonderland display in a Corona park was trashed over the weekend with vandals ripping ornaments off the main Christmas tree, damaging smaller trees and tearing down dangling snowflakes.
The festive holiday display at William F. Moore Park was vandalized overnight Saturday — less than two days after an official unveiling, Council Member Francisco Moya said.
Moya’s office had hosted a tree lighting ceremony Friday night to celebrate the opening of the winter wonderland installation at the park.
On Sunday morning, the council member was notified that ornaments had been pulled off the main tree structure, hanging snowflakes were torn down and several smaller trees that were part of the installation were bent over and knocked down.
“We only did the tree lighting on Friday — it didn’t even last two days,” Moya said in a video posted to Facebook.
The installation, designed by local artist Yessenia Calle, took hours of work to construct and was “very expensive,” he added.
“To wake up and see things like this makes me very sad that people would go out there and really try to destroy and damage a piece of artwork,” Moya said.
Moya said he had hoped to spread holiday cheer with the display and that he was disappointed that someone would try to destroy it.
“Corona was hit so hard by COVID. We wanted people to be able to enjoy and celebrate the holidays by sending a positive message here and instead we have this,” Moya said in the video, gesturing to the damaged display behind him.
A spokesperson for the council member’s office said the installation will be repaired in the next few days.
Vandals also targeted Moya’s district office. An autumnal display — featuring a leaf-covered arch— was torn down from the building overnight Saturday as well.
The winter wonderland installation on Friday night during the tree lighting ceremony (Council Member Francisco Moya)
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