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PETERBOROUGH ON—Community members have come together to remove the spray-painted graffiti that for years marked many of the city`s bridges and fences. Members of Peterborough Lakefield Community Police Service, along with Police Foundations students from Sir Sandford Fleming College, Royal Canadian Army cadets, young people from the Bridge Youth Centre and other residents, recently took a day to paint over the graffiti on Peterborough structures. The project, called Graffiti Busters, was primarily co-ordinated by Constable John Stoeckle, who works in the community services division at the city police department. As a member of the Ontario Gang Investigators Association, the officer is particularly interested in graffiti and its possible link to gang activity. Const. Stoeckle has spent the past few years studying graffiti and monitoring gang activity. The clean-up initiative improves the overall impression of the city, he notes. “There were a lot of community members who were disgusted from seeing the garbage on the walls,” says Const. Stoeckle. “It has a negative impact on the city.” On June 14, the team tackled the entire entrance to Jackson Park under the Parkhill bridge, the foot bridge behind the Volkswagen dealership on McDonnel Street, the Nichols Oval picnic pavilion, the Inverlea bridge and a fence in Millennium Park behind the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) building. Const. Stoeckle notes it costs cities worldwide $50 billion annually to handle graffiti. However, local taxpayers didn’t incur any of the expenses of this project, he notes. Home Depot donated the paint and necessary tools to give the properties a facelift. Other community partners contributed to the project by providing sandblasting services or donating food for the volunteers. Beautification was the main reason for the project, the constable notes. He says people are also offended by racial and homophobic comments that existed in at least one of the locations. He says while some of the graffiti is love notes or harmless doodles, the bottom line remains that it’s illegal. He adds providing a designated canvas for graffiti creators in one area of the city isn’t a feasible option. Once that palette is full, they’ll move on to decorate other property, according to Const. Stoeckle. “When you look at the bottom of it, it is a criminal matter. The longer you leave it, perpetuates the stupidity to go on.” Already, someone has taken a can of blue spray paint to the fence behind the MNR. Const. Stoeckle expects sporadic clean-ups down the road. “It makes good citizens,” he says. “It makes good communities.” Read part two in the series on Wednesday, Aug. 6. |
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