LYNN – Roughly 20 residents gathered together at a Public Safety Committee meeting Tuesday to discuss ongoing concerns with the Community Gardens located behind the Ingalls Elementary School.Absolutely livid over the situation, Chatham Street resident Marguerite Puleo, whose property abuts the school and the garden, described the plot as a dangerous place where gangs congregate and trouble often brews.Established in 2003 by the Food Project of the North Shore as a resource for students, and regarded by many city officials as a worthy program, Puleo sees the garden in a very different and more violent light.”That garden is 43,560 square feet? That’s some garden, it’s the length of a football field,” she said. “There are no lights or locks in the garden and people come and go as they please because no one is watching the property. I think this is ridiculous and it wouldn’t happen in Swampscott or Marblehead.”Frustrated over vandals breaking 11 windows at her home and causing significant damage to her car on numerous occasions, Puleo previously requested that the city pay for the damages and demanded that something be immediately done about the situation.School Committee member John Ford said the city is in fact working on a plan to secure the garden with an eight-foot-high fence around it, complete with locks and cameras for surveillance.”I’m waiting for estimates by the Inspectional Services Department (ISD) and Melissa Dimond (Director of Food Project, North Shore) said she would write a grant for federal assistance,” he said.Dimond said the non-profit, tax-exempt organization was created to better the lives of neighborhood children and to teach them how to be successful in the community.”The garden grows 20,000 pounds of food a season which means 60,000 meals for My Brother’s Table, the Lynn City Mission and for the farmer’s market,” she said. “The garden is tax-exempt because we don’t own the land, we made an agreement with the city for $1. And the 45 students on the payroll are paid minimum wage, so they are getting paid something.”Visibly irritated by Ford’s plan and by Dimond’s comments, Puleo said the garden is actually situated on top of the former Silver Lake, which was allegedly drained many years ago and contains old automobile parts and garbage beneath the fill that was later placed on top.Labeling the area potentially toxic and filled with “old junk”, Puleo also claimed that the garden does not pay for the water it uses and that the use of the land is not appropriate.”There are four well-known gangs that hang out there and when the crops start to ripen, it’s like hell in the neighborhood,” she said. “The school building belongs to the kids, not for a stupid place that gives out food?what’s wrong with this city?”Lynn police officer Robert Ferrari, who has been monitoring the situation from the beginning, said residents should be celebrating the garden because it is helping young kids in the city.”I have never heard of gang kids hanging out together in the garden, and I also haven’t heard that any of them have been bashing each other with zucchinis in there,” he said. “We have had six calls over a four-year span, which is nothing and the fact of the matter is that those calls just aren’t there.”Ferrari went on to say that if the garden does get shut down, the city might as well pave over the parks and playgrounds as well.”There are 1,600 gang members in the city and 14,000 kids in the Lynn schools, so that is a small percentage of Lynn youth,” he said. “Gangs just do not hang out behind the Ingalls School.”Dimond said water used at the garden is paid for and that a meter was installed when the garden was created.City officials also noted several complaints of rats in the area that residents claimed were from the garden.