Graffiti to be targeted

The authors of anti-stadium slogans and depictions of Mayor Peter Chin appearing around Dunedin could find their work featuring on a new anti-graffiti database to be developed by the Dunedin City Council and police.

The council has been awarded $53,000 in funding from the Ministry of Justice's graffiti and vandalism prevention fund to help combat graffiti in the city.

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The money would pay for a new part-time graffiti education officer for the next two years, council customer advocate Adrian Blair said.

The role would include preparing preventive education material, talking to community groups and visiting victims to offer advice on how best to remove graffiti and protect against it, he said.

"They will be working with the police and working to produce a [new] database of graffiti damage so the offenders may be more easily identified," he said.

The application for funding was part of the Keep Dunedin Beautiful initiative, and it was made with the co-operation of Dunedin police. The part-time employee would be based at the Dunedin Central police station.

Keep Dunedin Beautiful co-ordinator Darlene Thomson believed it was not enough to say Dunedin's graffiti problem was not as bad as Auckland's.

"People say it's not so bad compared to other places, but we don't look at it that way.

"We don't care about other places. We think it's quite bad here," she said.

The initiative was not in response to the appearance of anti-stadium and anti-council graffiti, including black and white images of Messrs Chin and Farry.

Mrs Thomson said there had "been a bit", but believed there was "more tagging than political messages" around the city.

The position was expected to be filled within six weeks, and would be in addition to the council's $10,000 budget for graffiti removal work and money spent by individual council departments on removing graffiti as required.

- chris.morris@odt.co.nz