Graffiti artists are on the loose again, and the latest victim has cried foul over the policies in place at City Hall to deal with it.
A local resident called the Regional Optimist to complain about his experience after his fence was tagged for the second time in the past four months, he said.
He received a summons to clean it off, but said he talked to City Hall requesting an extension of a couple more days to deal with the graffiti issue on his own.
What ended up happening, he said, was that the graffiti was cleaned up by the City's crews over the long weekend instead.
The resident expressed frustration over the prospect of being billed for the cleanup, but said he had even more of an issue with graffiti on cement and power poles that was not cleaned up by the City at the same time. The individual also expressed frustration with rules requiring residents to clean up in the first place.
"They're making criminals out of us and that's b------t," the caller said. He questioned why it was "okay for the graffiti-artists to do the graffiti and not okay for us to leave it."
The Regional Optimist went down to the neighborhood to see the situation for ourselves last Monday afternoon. While there was not a lot of graffiti found, there was a black graffiti tag on one power pole in the back alley of 113th Street as well as red markings on a slab of concrete on 11th Avenue and 113th Street.
In speaking to the Regional Optimist on Wednesday, city manager Jim Puffalt said the individual's concerns were known to the City and would be addressed.
Puffalt admitted the individual's request for an extension did not get to bylaw enforcement as it should have, and indicated the individual will not be liable for the work that was done by the City. Puffalt also indicated the City would look into and address the graffiti on the cement slab and elsewhere.
Beyond that, the City manager was sympathetic to the concerns raised and pledged to look at some changes to the way the City deals with the graffiti issue.
The complainant's experience "raised a whole bunch of questions where we need to look at a graffiti program and see if we could do something different," said Puffalt.
He said North Battleford is looking at what other cities in Saskatchewan are doing on the issue.
"We are looking at the graffiti program to see if there are some modifications that could be made to it," said Puffalt.
While changes could be coming, Puffalt made it known the need was still there for programs to clean up graffiti as soon as it shows up in the community.
"It's really kind of that broken window syndrome - people see graffiti and it tends to increase the amount of graffiti," said Puffalt. "If we don't do something about it, it gives the impression that the City or the people don't care about their property."
