City to hold graffiti summit

By Jim Mynard
RIVER Gum Ward councillor Wayne Smith has been successful in his bid to get the City of Casey to convene a graffiti summit of Victoria’s 78 mayors.
Cr Smith said there was a need to get the mayors together to meet and discuss a joint approach in stopping graffiti.
He said an example of what could be done was provided when the State Government cleaned graffiti from Melbourne walls for the Commonwealth Games.
He said, however, that this was a token effort by the government just for the games and the graffiti had returned.
“It is time the 78 mayors discussed this.
“If they would follow the Casey lead then we would not have graffiti,” he said.
The council was also told that graffiti vandals could find they have difficulty getting a credit card under a City of Casey program to eradicate graffiti.
Casey councillors presented the idea during extensive debate on how best to prevent graffiti vandalism.
The issue was before the Tuesday 4 July council meeting that led to a more determined plan by the council to clean up the mess.
Mayfield Ward councillor Steve Beardon said convicted vandals could be ordered to pay for their damage and if they could not pay then they would incur a debt.
“If they are under 18 they will have the debt imposed and when they turn 18 they will have great difficulty arranging credit.
“We have this option to recoup our costs. People who do graffiti can be held accountable.”
In response to advice that the council had a large database of graffiti patterns Four Oaks Ward councillor Rob Wilson asked how many people were known offenders to Casey.
Casey acting manager of community safety Caroline Bell said the council held more than 1500 patterns, but she could not provide the names of possible offenders.
Cr Wilson said he would put the question on notice.
Cr Beardon said police had advised him that a hard core of vandals caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage.