Graffiti fight will take citizen help (March 27)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
An item in the San Francisco Chronicle Thursday told about the awful time they are having in that city with graffiti. It seems as though some sections of the city are lousy with graffiti and it is getting worse.
One of the problems they have is that the citizens — unless they are the ones whose buildings are getting vandalized — don’t seem to care. In one case, a guy the police caught with the paint on his hands managed to be acquitted because the jury (which it took 60 people to seat) just didn’t think the case was serious enough to find the dink guilty.
San Franciscans apparently are plenty willing to complain about graffiti, but when it comes to doing something about it, it’s “don’t bother me.”
Let’s hope that doesn’t happen in Madera when the graffiti busters come to town.
You may remember that the city has hired a consultant to help quell taggers, and word is that the preliminary paperwork is almost done and it won’t be long before the full-court press is going to be put on graffiti vandals.
The consultants claim to have cleaned up San Jose to the point where graffiti are rare.
It will be good if they can help us do that here.
But it will take citizen cooperation. Citizens have to be the eyes and ears of the program along with police and code-enforcement officers, the consultants said during their pitch to the City Council earlier this year.
Yes, we still have graffiti problems in spite of spending what now has gone over $250,000 a year on graffiti eradication. But if you remember what the town looked like seven years ago when the graffiti program started — it was a graffiti toilet — compared to today, it is much improved due to the program.
If citizens get on board, it will be looking even better.
