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Sch’dy must deal with graffiti, too

    In an editorial Wednesday we addressed two major quality-of-life issues in Schenectady: derelict houses and wretched roads. In stressing the importance of repairing the city’s fastdeteriorating road system, we did not mean to denigrate Mayor Brian Stratton’s new initiative to tear down the 50 worst houses, which is an excellent idea — and not just for aesthetic reasons, but practical ones. In addition to being eyesores, these unsafe, unoccupied houses lower the property values of those around them, demoralize the neighborhood, attract vandals and other crimes, and discourage economic development.
    At the same time, though, the city must maintain its recent commitment to keeping its roads safe and passable, for bicyclists as well as motorists, overcoming the damage caused by years of deferred maintenance. It is admittedly a tough balancing act in a city as strapped for resources as Schenectady, and Stratton deserves credit for trying to tackle both issues.
    Today we’d like to talk about a third big quality-of-life issue, and one that, fortunately, can be dealt with at little or no city expense: graffiti. Like potholes, this stuff is sprouting up all over town, and like derelict houses, it is ugly and has a demoralizing effect. Last year the city passed a spray-paint-can sales law that has not helped. It has also talked about allowing murals on the most graffiti-prone sites — which is only a partial answer at best, and raises questions about who approves, designs and draws the murals, and what quality standards will apply.
    Our suggestion: a communitywide anti-graffiti day, or days, in the spring and perhaps again in the fall. The city might pay for the paint, or perhaps find a corporate sponsor or grant (costs could be kept down by using recycled). Better yet, start a paint exchange, like Fulton County has had since 2001, where homeowners can get rid of their leftover paint, rather than dispose of it in a landfill or down the drain. What better way to use unwanted paint than to cover up unwanted graffi ti?
    To help city officials keep track of where the graffiti is, the Gazette would be willing to set up a “Graffiti Wall” on its Web site where readers can identify the scrawled-over spots.

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Give anti-graffiti paint a try

    We’ve made a number of suggestions in past editorials for dealing with graffiti in Schenectady — a growing problem that Commissioner of General Services Carl Olsen says he doesn’t have the money or manpower to keep up with. Last Sunday 10 residents of the Stockade and East Front Street came up with their own solution. They bought their own paint, brought their own ladders, and painted over the graffiti on a couple of railroad bridges — bridges and other high structures being the Holy Grail of the graffiti “artist.”
    The volunteers used regular primer to cover the graffiti, which cost them $100. And they will probably have to do it again soon, as Olsen says his crews have had to do when they’ve painted these bridges and other graffiti hotspots.
    It’s worth the expense and effort because graffiti scrawls are ugly and intimidating and degrade the city’s quality of life. But it doesn’t have to be the exercise in futility that it is. Apparently there’s a special paint from which graffiti can be easily removed by sponging or power washing. It’s about six times as expensive as regular paint — but unlike regular paint wouldn’t have to be applied over and over again.
    If the Stockade residents, or another neighborhood group, are willing to supply the labor, the city should spring for the money — at least on a few bridges or buildings as an experiment. Why not give it a try and see if it works?

This approach will be just fine until someone falls off a ladder or bridge and ends up suing the city.

We continue to pay for the bad choices other people make. It is against the law to defame personal or public property. I'm sure it isn't an easy task to catch these guys/girls in the act, but my God, these 'paint jobs' are so in detail that I'm sure it takes more than 5 minutes to accomplish. I find it so hard to believe that NO ONE sees this stuff being done. The city has it's share of street walkers, homeless and prostitutes and yet NO ONE sees this going on? NO ONE see someone painting a mural on a bridge? Or a mural on the side of a building?  

How about the rail companies taking care of their stinkin' nasty dirty properities in the county-----I'm sorry, they are sloppy with their upkeep.......let's see a little more interest in your property rail companies........totally disgusting and rude and disrespectful........ > > > >

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Don’t give up on graffiti

    Yesterday’s arrest of five teens in Amsterdam for graffiti and our Saturday story about a graffiti crackdown in that city were apparently unrelated. Amsterdam police say the cases were in the works before the story appeared, and before the $250 reward program that the story mentioned was established. But even if it’s only a happy coincidence, we’d be glad to do more stories about graffiti in other places, including Schenectady, if they were followed shortly by arrests.
    Graffiti in Schenectady is worse than ever, despite recent laws passed by the City Council to stop it. One is the requirement that store owners keep spray paint under lock and key, or else hidden from view. It is unclear how well that law has been enforced, but Councilwoman Barbara Blanchard says she intends to find out from the city’s code enforcement officer at tonight’s Government Operations Committee meeting. It is clear that the other law, requiring homeowners and merchants to get rid of graffiti within 10 days, has not been enforced; the stuff is all over buildings around the city, Goose Hill in particular.
    This is not an easy problem to stop — graffi ti makers can work quietly and quickly — but it must be dealt with because graffiti is demoralizing. It degrades the quality of life in a community and encourages more vandalism and lawlessness.
    So it’s important that the city not just throw up its hands. It has to make more of an effort to catch graffiti makers, and to clean up their work as soon as it appears.
    To catch them, a reward program like the one in Amsterdam should be considered. A graffiti hotline should be established, either at City Hall or the police station, where a citizen can provide information while the crime is occurring or after. Police Chief Mark Chaires’ decision to increase the number of foot patrols in troubled areas could also help.
    But while it isn’t always easy to stop graffiti, it ought to be possible to remove or cover it up more quickly, especially with winter coming to an end and city crews less focused on snowplowing. Other possibilities are providing free paint to homeowners and businesses; assigning prisoners to anti-graffiti detail; making it an alternative to incarceration; pushing it as a community service project for ..................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00501