During the public comment portion of the Rock Springs City Council meeting tonight, Rock Springs resident David Degoyette complained about other residents’ behavior at the Rock Springs Recreation Center.

Degoyette said while he was in the hot tub and locker room at the recreation center, children were left to run around the facility unattended. While they are unattended, they have torn doors off lockers and they turn on all of the showers, however, that wasn’t his biggest complaint.

“It’s been frustrating, real frustrating to even talk about,” Degoyette said. “I’ve been threatened (I’d) find myself in a shallow grave for even mentioning it.”

“And that was not an exaggeration,” he said.

Degoyette said he was sitting in the hot tub one evening and a child was turning all of the showers on. He said he asked the father, “He doesn’t have to turn them all on, does he?”

The father and another man then allegedly threatened to kill him.

When Degoyette told a recreation center employee about the threat, he claims he wasn’t taken seriously and nothing was done. He also claims the Rock Springs Police Department didn’t take his claims seriously either.

Even though there are cameras at the recreation center, he overheard a conversation about them not bothering to pull the footage. He said it’s like no one seems to care.

Mayor Timothy Kaumo said people do care and he talked with the recreation center department head and RSPD Chief Dwane Pacheco. Kaumo said there is a process and they are following it, and Pacheco said they are investigating and going to look at the video.

Degoyette said he came to the meeting because there has since been a second incident he reported and he was treated the same. This time a man threatened to harm him when he said he didn’t want the jets running in the hot tub.

“By reporting it, I felt like I was being looked at like I was the problem,” Degoyette said.

When he told a recreation center employee what happened he claims he was told, “You sure do cause a lot of problems. He said he was also told, “Well, that’s just oil and coal culture.”

“That’s just a dismissal of the entire thing,” he said. That’s what bothered him the most.

“All I want is peace. I just want to sit in the hot tub like everyone else and rest my back,” Degoyette said

“We don’t expect anybody to have to go through that,” Kaumo said. 

Councilman Billy Shalata said he’s been going to the civic and recreation centers for 40 years and he has seen children misbehaving in the locker rooms, but never people threatening others.

Kaumo said he’d never seen anything like that either, but the city will look into the matter.