Wiping out downtown graffiti

By DAN KEGLEY/Staff

Ken Heath had good luck getting an ordinance passed this winter banning skateboarders from Marion sidewalks. Now the town ordinance committee will consider his proposal to end graffiti downtown.
The problem is not extensive, according to Heath, who mainly wants to prevent future incidents.
“It was a problem downtown last fall, on Court Street and Pendleton Street,” Heath said. “There was a rash of it for a while. Now it’s kind of died down.”
The ordinance committee will contemplate code adopted from another municipality, according to Marion Town Attorney Mark Fenyk.
Fenyk’s draft identifies graffiti as “the unauthorized application by any means of any writing, painting, drawing, etching, scratching or marking of an inscription, word, figure or design of any type on any public or private building or other real estate or personal property owned, operated or maintained by a governmental entity or agency or instrumentality thereof or by any private person, firm, or corporation.”
Violating the ordinance prohibiting graffiti would be a Class I misdemeanor.
The ordinance would provide for the parents of minors found guilty of graffiti-making to pay the costs for damages “suffered by reason of the willful destruction of, or damage to, public property by the minor.”
The committee will report on its study of the proposed ordinance at a future council meeting.