According to City Manager Jerry Moss, all Henderson businesses have been contacted regarding the city’s relatively new graffiti ordinance.
The ordinance, passed on May 22, requires building owners to remove graffiti within 30 days of its being placed on a structure. It also makes it illegal to sell or furnish implements of graffiti if the provider has reason to believe that such will be used for the purpose of creating graffiti. These include spray paint cans, broad-tipped markers, paint sticks, or any other implement capable of making a line more than 1/8 inch thick.
At yesterday’s Public Safety Committee meeting, chair Lonnie Davis announced a need to set a method of enforcement for the ordinance.
Moss elaborated, stating a further need for fines and removal of graffiti.
The city manager told those present that drug seizure funds would be used for removal. Because those funds are being used, the city may not hire personnel for the purpose of graffiti abatement; however, it can contract the service.
Drug seizure funds may be used for capital outlay, but may not supplant normal budgetary expenditures.
Moss said that the [police] chief had talked with people who said that they could remove graffiti with a pressure washer and chemicals.
The manager went on to describe a cumbersome process in which an owner must be notified of the need to remove graffiti from his or her property. The owner then has the right of a hearing, with the city manager as the hearing officer.
Public Safety Committee member Lynn Harper commently wryly that Henderson ordinances are always complicated and sometimes unenforceable.
“The last thing I want to do is get involved in being a hearing officer,” Moss said.
Harper stated that for private buildings, the owner is responsible.
“It’s a cost of doing business,” she told the committee.
She went on to tell fellow members that she did not want the city to get involved with graffiti removal from private property in the same way that it is already involved with cutting vacant lots.
When Henderson City Council member Garry Daeke mentioned that the businesses of Henderson are not responsible for graffiti, Harper rejoined that the taxpayer is not responsible either.
Harper emphasized that if people will get graffiti off, it will keep it from coming back.
Council member Elissa Yount told members that the school system addresses the problem by removing graffiti as soon as it occurs.
Yount also noted that most people assume that it must be painted over rather than removed.
Home in Henderson has noticed one business that has painted over graffiti. The graffiti is still visible underneath the new coat of paint.
When asked if the city is responsible for removing graffiti from traffic signs, Moss indicated that the city is responsible, and that most of the time it must replace the sign, since the light-reflecting quality of the sign is affected by the paint-removing chemicals.
Assistant City Manager Mark Warren mentioned that some areas around Daniel Street have significant graffiti in the road itself. He told members that the city was attempting to get rid of it using various chemicals.
Yount commented that the city did not write the graffiti ordinance to be punitive. She said that the purpose of government is to do for people what they cannot do for themselves.
“We have to tell them that they have to do it,” Yount said.
Harper suggested asking the Henderson-Vance Chamber of Commerce to put out a sheet explaining to businesses in layman’s terms the provisions of the anti-graffiti ordinance.
Daeke alternately suggested using the money in the anti-graffiti trust fund, approximately $40,000, to quickly remove as much graffiti as possible in a first-time sweep of the city in what he termed a “soft-stick approach”. He said the city should make it clear that it is happy to do it the first time, but businesses should be aware that they are on their own subsequently.
Council member Ranger Wilkerson warned that if the removal process damaged private property, the city would be liable.
It was decided that Moss would research how other municipal goverments approach anti-graffiti enforcement in their communities.