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'Memorial' or vandalism? Chris Ward of the Ashland parks department tears apart a wood-and-dirt structure Thursday built illegally in Lithia Park. [Mail Tribune / Andy Atkinson] Thursday Feb 15, 2018 at 5:59 PM Feb 15, 2018 at 6:24 PM By Tran Nguyen for the Mail Tribune A routine check on a January morning took an odd turn when two Ashland parks staffers stumbled on a 6- to 8-foot-tall platform made of soil and wood on a hillside in Lithia Park. “(Whoever) did this, they cut into the hillside of Lithia Park, gathered scattered wood, cut down some trees and dug up the soil around there to build it,” said Jason Minica, open space and outer parks supervisor. It was so odd that Minica struggled to find a word to describe it during an interview Wednesday. But, he said, to some in the Ashland homeless community, the elevated level in the middle of the park had served as a memorial site. “When we pulled it down, some of the homeless who were hanging around there started yelling at us. They were outraged,” Minica said. “That’s when we learned what it is.” Minica said some of the onlookers told him they scattered ashes on the platform, and it was “disrespectful” to the community to tear it down. Located among unnamed trails on the hillside, the platform was near the wooden steps off Fork Street, secluded from various angles and out of sight of hikers, Minica said. The site is known as a popular spot for homeless people to gather, parks Director Michael Black told the Parks Commission at a meeting Monday. The platform is illegal and is considered vandalism, Black said. Concerns ramped up when parks staff found another platform nearby — even bigger — just three weeks after they found and pulled down the first one, Minica told the commission. “They cut even farther back in the hillside, making it bigger. I’d say around 20 percent bigger than the first one we pulled down,” Minica said. “We don’t tend to bring a maintenance issue to the commission, but this proved to be a continuous problem,” Black said. Black said there’s a process through a city committee to get approval for a memorial site in the city. Parks has no record of an authorized memorial site in Lithia Park. "(The city) has never reviewed or approved it,” Black said, adding he received an angry phone call when the site was first torn down. “There’s a process to things like this.” Minica said the parks department has dealt with the same type of vandalism before, where parks land and trail was being cut into, “but nothing of this size.” The platform was made up of roughly 40 yards of soil dug, Minica said. “Erosion is our biggest concern about this,” Minica said. “It’s also illegal to cut into our trails like this.” Parks workers found stolen tools from the first platform, as well as torches and glass pipes that Minica suspected were for drug use. “We found shovels that actually belonged to parks,” he said. “The rakes could come from anywhere — they could be ours too, but we can’t prove that.” Early Thursday, Minica brought a backhoe and tore down the second platform. This time, parks workers were accompanied by a police officer, just in case. Ashland police Chief Tighe O’Meara said he was not aware of any contention at the site Thursday morning. The site will get extra patrol time, O’Meara said. Minica said the parks department has put up warning signs and will increase patrols in the area. — Reach reporter Tran Nguyen at 541-776-4485 or [email protected]. Follow her on twitter @nguyenntrann.