This is a response to the cameras from the current Executive Director. Here are some facts:
1. The cameras would never have been installed other than the fact that the Gardens have been targets of vandalism. We are no diferent than any other business trying to protect its property and trying to keep a quality of life asset beautiful and safely available to its community. I think you would be hard pressed to find any business or location today without some form of security. Believe me, we would have preferred using the money for garden improvement or salary raises. Welcome to the current century.
2. The cameras are digital and recording at all times so we can view footage IF there is an identifiable problem. We are extremely short staffed and overworked; we really have no time or interest in sitting and watching your every move, especially if you are using the gardens for relaxation and enjoyment.
3. If you are using the Gardens for pleasure and relaxation, as you state, then you have no reason to worry that someone might be watching you. Only guilty consciences should let video survelliance disrupt their relaxation.
4. Rotary Botanical Gardens is appreciative of the community members and anonymous donor who stepped forward after several different incidences of major vandalism and provided the funding to keep the Gardens safe from destruction and safe for visitors. You should be too.
5. The Janesville community and region should appreciate the tremendous asset that is Rotary Botanical Gardens, cameras or not. It is truly an ideal place for respite in these trying and turbulent times.

Sannio, you have cameras trained on you more often than you'd think. At the mall, in banks, in the grocery stores, parking lots, street intersections in some towns,churches, laundromats, the post office, restaurants, elevators, hotel lobbies and hallways, offices and cubicles, inside homes and even on peoples' front porches and driveways... Technology nowadays can have a wireless pinhole camera hidden in a pair of eyeglasses, a clock face, computer monitors, the knot of a necktie, a soda can and just about anywhere else. wireless microphone technology is just as advanced. Depending on how thorough a business or individual wants to be with their surveillance equipment, and how much they have to spend, WE ALL could be being watched RIGHT NOW. Scary thought, eh?

If you have a better way to keep vandals under control I bet the people at Rotary Gardens would love to hear it.

Hey sannio, I guess you would much rather go to a park that has excessive vandalism and violence going on instead. Rotary Gardens is not a publically funded park that can afford to keep repairing damage from inconsiderate visitors. You should be appreciative of the care they take to keep it safe and beautiful for you to visit.

Who would want to go to a park where they have cameras trained on you everywhere? That doesn't seem very relaxing.