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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Hopes site eyesore may become sight for sore eyes
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
That white fence
The question has to be asked: Why was a solid fence ever erected? There is no legal requirement for it. A netting fence would have sufficed and no graffiti.
OSH never asked for it. So who did? More waste of our money.
I was in Dunedin this year
You have some awsome graffiti. Some of it legal, some of it probably not so. Some of it is artistic and some of it vandalism. Either way certainly a mark of any city. If anything, in that sense it should be something to be proud of. Providing adequate legal walls and designated places for graffiti is the way to go. Hopefully some of the money will go into those sort of programs.