Casual Observation

Last evening, in front of my house, two policemen arrived in two cars and appeared to be measuring something when they first got out of their cars. Interested in what was happening on our street, we kept a watchful eye as the police left the scene (were nowhere in sight) and for a full 30 plus minutes the cars were unattended. One of the police cars, labeled “supervisor,” was left running with the windows rolled down. Hmm….

Tag You're It - part 2

Graffiti really bothers me.

I think that it tells people who want to commit various crimes that Middletown is Open for Business. I do not think it is a beautification issue. I think it is a public safety issue.

Even if some of the graffiti is just vandalism and is not linked to a larger gang problem, I think that leaving it up shows that we tolerate a high level of uncivil behavior -- and I think that's the wrong message.

Last year the Downtown Business District (DBD) and the Central Business Bureau (CBB) focused a lot of energy on this problem. The police caught some of the people doing the graffiti, they were prosecuted, assigned community service, then we (the DBD) bought the product to clean the graffiti, and supervised the people who were caught as they did their community service cleaning up the tags in the downtown. This took a lot of effort and attention on the part of several people: Marie Kalita Leary (Downtown Manager), Vinnie Amato (for pressing for a process of having those caught do the clean-up), the Downtown Guides (particulary Dennis), and Police Chief Baldoni and the downtown beat cops and lots of others. Eventually, all the graffiti in the DBD and Main Street corridor was removed, unless a building owner refused help.

Of course, eventually, when the warm weather returned, the grafitti came back. But this year, it's not appearing in the areas that are covered by those organizations -- and any graffiti that DOES appear in the DBD is quickly cleaned by the Downtown Guides. Instead, the graffiti runs in a ring around the Main Street area.

At this point, much of the graffiti is on public property -- such as street signs and those electrical boxes (not sure who is really in charge of those.) In early Spring this year, my kids and I compiled a list of all the graffiti we could find, which we gave to the Police, and we gave Public Works and Wesleyan a list of the graffiti on their property -- and both did clean some of it up (for example, under the highway bridges on DeKoven/East Main in the photos from the earlier post on this subject). But now there is a lot more and we seem to have some very persistent taggers. There's no doubt that when it comes to graffiti, when you clean it up, it will get replaced and this escalates until one side gives up -- and unfortunately, we seem to be the ones who have given up. I think part of the problem is that it costs time and money for Public Works to clean up graffiti -- and if you don't check it EVERY DAY then the clean-up is not as effective as it might be. Also, I know the police have done various stake-outs and other methods to try to catch more of the perpetrators, but as you can imagine, it's a little random. In cases of continued re-tagging, like the electrical box across from the Synagogue, I wonder if a camera might be useful. So, it's important for citizens to be advocating for graffiti clean-up and to ask the Mayor to support Public Works and the Police in making this a priority.

I'd welcome any suggestions that anyone has about how to tackle this problem.

As for the few private property owners who have graffiti on their buildings, like the gas station on South Main shown in the last post, anyone reading this is welcome to stop by those businesses and ask them to please paint over the graffiti -- it's been there a long time. And if they haven't reported to the police that they have been the victim of vandalism, then they should do that -- but it's time to move ahead and clean up the mess.

(Photos: Pearse Pinch)

Tag you're it

We've got a graffiti problem in Middletown, and it isn't getting better.

Walk a block in any direction from Main Street and you're bound to spot a "tag." The city's procedure is for citizens who see graffiti is to call and report it to the police department so it will be recorded, and then to call the Public Works departments (sometimes repeatedly) so that they will remove it.

Middletown is obviously making some effort to control the problem. Witness paint overs on highway substructure on DeKoven Dr./East Main.

But if the quantity and frequency of the tagging is any indication, the city may not be pursuing the problem agressively.

If the experience of other cities is of any value, what begins as a nuisance blossoms into a plague. In addition, some public safety officials have denied that there is any gang connection to the graffiti. My own gut tells me that when I see "Blood" scrawled on an abandoned truck trailer, I should at least be suspicious that the notorious gang of the same name is making inroads to a city where narcotics are also a problem.

While eradicating graffiti is nearly impossible, other cities have had some success in stemming the problem using a variety of techniques, including:

- writing a graffiti ordinance (I can't find one in Middletown's code)
- apprehending taggers and prosecuting
- making taggers and their parents financially responsible for cleanup
- getting rid of tags immediately though cleaning or paintovers
- setting up a graffiti reporting line
- enlist business owners in combating the problem
- hold property owners responsible for cleaning graffiti on their premises

As one anti-graffiti website says, the difference between art and vandalism is permission. And there is no tagger in Middletown who is making any aesthetic advances.

All the photos here were taken within one hour on a morning walk around the city. Some of the identical tags can be seen at several locations. What's published here is less than half of what I saw and photographed.