The public park where police cited Bowling Green City Commissioner Catherine Hamilton for disorderly conduct has fostered a reputation online and among local law enforcement as a place for clandestine sexual encounters.

City police officers began conducting undercover surveillance at Weldon Peete Park on Thursday and that morning witnessed Hamilton perform oral sex for a few seconds on Mark Vaughn on the paved walking trail.

Hamilton and Vaughn were both cited by police, and she pleaded guilty Friday to disorderly conduct while Vaughn pleaded guilty to indecent exposure.

Officer Barry Pruitt, spokesman for the Bowling Green Police Department, said the park on Old Louisville Road has been an object of police scrutiny in the past, with officers citing four people in February 2009 and two in August of last year for indecent exposure there.

“We recognize this as a problem area and we’re trying to go in there and eliminate this illicit sexual activity,” Pruitt said.

No one else has been cited by police during the current undercover investigation, which police initiated in response to complaints from callers in the past couple of weeks about sexual activity at the park.

The Regional Organized Crime Information Center in Nashville has loaned specialized surveillance equipment to the BGPD, a member agency, for the current investigation, Pruitt said.

While police continue to patrol Weldon Peete, the park maintains a reputation online as a sexual hotbed.

A Google search of “Weldon Peete Park in Bowling Green” brings up a website catering to people cruising for sex in the area near the top of the search results.

The site gives the park a five-star rating and describes Weldon Peete as “not a very busy park” where the walking trail and parking area near the woods are the best places to cruise for sex and nudity “could easily happen in (the park’s) wooded area.”

Warren County Parks and Recreation Director Chris Kummer said he has been working with the Bowling Green police for the past 14 months, sharing his concerns about lewd and illicit activity at the park.

“We’ve had operations with the drug task force in the past and then also combined efforts with extra patrols with the Warren County Sheriff’s Office and city police,” Kummer said.

The investigations into drug activity have resulted in multiple arrests, Kummer said.

The city owns and maintains the walking track, while the parking area is maintained by the county.

Located along the Barren River, the park includes a boat ramp and is kept open at all hours because the ramp is a key access point for emergency workers who need to use boats in search and rescue efforts.

“With that park being open 24 hours a day, it does tend to have a few more problems than other parks that are closed at dark or at 11 each night,” Kummer said. “Things are a whole lot better than they were about three and a half years ago.”

The park’s entrance is next to Academy for Little People, a day care center on Old Louisville Road.

Holly Fields, the day care’s owner and director, said she was unaware of illicit sexual activity occurring at the park and believes the children at her center are protected from seeing anything inappropriate.

“I’ve actually had some police officers’ children that go here,” Fields said. “We’ve never actually had any problems here, knock on wood … we can’t actually see into the park from the playground.”