I can only guess that our elected officials, from the mayor and city council to the state’s attorney and police department, are afraid to hold taggers accountable.

They would rather see the once beautiful Queen City ruined than be accused of being on the side of law and order.

Let’s elect a strong mayor in March and recall our criminal- coddling state’s attorney.

The restorative justice office has helped people not reoffend. The old way hasn't worked. Isolating people in prison typically does far more harm than good. As for tagging, there needs to be a city-wide effort by city employees and building owners to regularly go out every morning and paint over their buildings graffiti. People here expect someone else to do it. Landlords dont want to spend the time or money. It's not just the city officials responsibility. It's everyones.

A few points:

1. By accountability, I mean aggressively identifying and offering a tagger a choice: Spend 50-100 hours assigned to a Public Works crew cleaning up graffiti OR spend some time in prison repaying your debt to society. If an existing ordinance says an offender cannot be given such a choice, change the ordinance.

2. Painting over graffiti merely gives taggers a clean slate for more vandals. As many cities have learned, assigning a TASK FORCE to examine the issue and develop a viable plan is the way to go.

3. Burlington has a $96 million annual budget. It can afford to clean up graffiti in city confines. A TASK FORCE member should visit a property owner whose surfaces have been defaced and develop a workable plan for cleaning up the property.

Here’s a recent photo of the old YMCA building. Cleaned surfaces have all been retagged. Emboldened taggers are even defacing its steep roof.

You can very rarely catch taggers. And if you paint over it every single morning, as a community, they will realize they are wasting their money. Portland Maine fines businesses and landlords for every day they dont paint over graffiti. It is thus not a big problem there. It gets painted over pretty much immediately.

Sadly.. NOBODY IN BURLINGTON CARES

Well they care enough to complain and point fingers but not to actually get some paint themselves if they are a landlord or property owner and paint over it so much that the taggers learn their spraypaint is wasted there because it will be painted over immediately. The wall at bennington potters is painted grey with a security camera and a large sign that says the consequences of tagging there and wow, it doesnt get tagged. Start fining property owners for every day it's not painted over and it will be painted over asap.

I've emailed my city councilor... only 1 or 2 of 8 Burlington councilors even know what SeeClickFix is maybe one (1) regularly follows it. Posting here is a waste of time... vote the progressives out of office and hire clean up crews at market wages.

The only way I've ever gotten anything done is with seeclickfix. And furthermore market wages? How about a living wage? Anyway this has gotten way off topic.

Covered!

Yes thanks, the black paint was but the silver and purple is still there.

Closed