Graffiti Removal on City Council Agenda
The city’s continuing war on graffiti will take center stage tonight as council members debate whether to spend more money to erase illegal urban scrawl.
Mayor David Shawver asked city staff members to look into the possibility of covering graffiti with matching paint, instead of coating the scrawl with more generic colors. City Manager Terry Matz said matching colors on graffiti-marred surfaces would be costly. “It would cost us more time and money to try to match the color to the surface where the graffiti is applied,” Matz said.
The city currently spends about $26,000 a year to have one person paint over graffiti. The goal is to erase the marks within 24 hours after it is spotted. More duties--from hunting down matching colors to washing paint brushes--would slow the program to a crawl, a staff report said. It remains unclear just how much the additional efforts would cost.
Matz said the council will discuss tonight whether to investigate the cost to do more cosmetically pleasing graffiti removal.
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