In what would seem to be a continuation of the marathon of the insensitive running through Whitehorse recently, city taxpayers will again have to cough up tens of thousands of dollars to repair a vandalism spree.

The latest incidents saw vandals tear through public greenery and rip off a cemetery.

In an interview this morning, city parks supervisor Doug Hnatiuk said the latest round public mischief included a vehicle doing 'doughnuts' on the Hamilton Boulevard and a break-in at the Grey Mountain Cemetery.

The damage and stolen property will cost the citizens of Whitehorse about $20,000 to repair and replace, he estimates.

'The roundabout was a deliberate act of vandalism,' Hnatiuk said .

Early last Saturday morning, he said, someone waited for the sprinklers to pop up on the roundabout to drive over them.

'It caused the irrigation system to rupture,' he added.

Fellow causalities in the roundabout romp, suspected to be caused by ATVs, were some planters, the grass and a tree final price tag, about $10,000.

'This looked like a deliberate attempt to damage; they must have gone around it (the roundabout) at least six times,' Hnatiuk said.

The casualties at Grey Mountain Cemetery were tools used to care for the property, which also totalled in the neighbourhood of $10,000.

The perpetrators, according to Hnatiuk, appeared to know what they were doing late last Friday or early last Saturday. They cut the phone lines to the property before breaking into the shed and stealing public property.

'We anticipate it was a professional job,' he said.

'The money (to fix and replace damaged items) is coming directly out of taxpayers' pockets,' he added, explaining that city parks workers are taking the vandalism personally.

The most recent round of damage to public property is adding to the city's $100,000-a-year vandalism bill.

Also hit this past summer have been the memorial benches which line the Millennium Trail.

At some point, a person, or persons, used felt markers and and a knife to vandalize at least two benches on the Riverdale side of the trail, Hnatiuk said recently.

'The benches on the Riverdale side are more prone to getting hit than the ones on the Robert Service (Way) side,' Hnatiuk said.

The offending vandalism included several 'swear words and other profanity,' he said.

'It's a significant cost to the taxpayer. For our crews, it's really frustrating.'

Also hit in recent history have been a number of garbage cans along the city's trail system and the Rotary Centennial Bridge.

'The Rotary Centennial Bridge was hit on its very first day. Somebody used a black marker to write on the bridge and even wrote down the time that they did it,' he said of the bridge, which opened earlier this summer.

Hnatiuk said he was disappointed that people would deface public property on what is known to be the city's favourite trail system.

Whitehorse RCMP Sgt. John Sutherland said the number of incidents of vandalism vary according to the time of year, with the city experiencing more illegal acts from vandals in the summer months.

He said it is difficult to catch people and that the RCMP encourage members of the public to contact them if they see people defacing public property.

'We rely heavily on the public to phone us when they see these acts taking place,' Sutherland said.

According to the parks department, the Millennium Trail has seen increased activity with a counter, placed somewhere on the trail, recording '232,000' hits to date this year, nearly 20,000 more than the whole of last year.

'We expect to have more than 250,000,' Hnatiuk said.

The parks department monitors trail use with a 'beam sensor' which counts the number of times people pass it.

Each time the sensor monitors people going by, it records a hit.

Late last month, Hnatiuk said that he couldn't reveal the location of the only beam sensor on the trail because the last time that information became common knowledge, a sensor was stolen.

'We've lost three ($350) sensors this year,' he said.

He said he wasn't sure what people would actually do with the sensors and is not sure why people would want to steal them.

Private property has also been hit by vandalism. Late Tuesday or early Wednesday, several windows were smashed at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.