By ANDREW KOUBARIDIS andrew.koubaridis@wanganuichronicle.co.nz
GRAFFITI and vandalism has skyrocketed in Wanganui during recent months and the council has run out of cash to fix the problem.
Police, the Wanganui District Council and Mainstreet Wanganui have formed a taskforce to combat the problem and council will discuss legislation and other ways to control
graffiti at Monday's full council meeting.
Council Community and Cultural Manager Sally Patrick said the $15,000 budget for graffiti removal had already been spent with six months of the financial year remaining. The budget is used to remove graffiti in the CBD and public spaces in the Wanganui urban area.
Mainstreet Wanganui operations manager Ritchie Minnell told the Wanganui Chronicle the city had just endured its worst year of tagging and vandalism.
"And its escalated over the past six months," he said. Just yesterday, staff spent hours cleaning up new tagging at Wembley Park, Wanganui East.
Mr Minnell said the newly-formed taskforce would adopt a zero tolerance policy toward graffiti. They had no power over private property but encouraged property owners to remove it.
"They can ring us and we can show them how to remove it, or pay us to do it for them."
Mr Minnell said he had been documenting each act of graffiti he encountered, photographed it and entered it into a database.
The intention was to try and establish patterns and identify offenders.
"Even now I can roughly work out where they'll be," he said. The graffiti was a combination of small gang tags and graffiti art.
Wanganui police area commander Inspector Duncan MacLeod said graffiti was going to be an issue for any city to grapple with. Officers were always on the lookout for offenders. "If people can come up with ways we can reduce, prevent and apprehend then that's something we're willing to discuss with people," he said.
Ms Patrick said Monday's meeting would hear about Manukau City Council's attempts to control graffiti and their local bill that gave council more power to punish offenders.
It will discuss a recommendation that local MPs be advised of its support for the Manukau City Bill.
