Council approves revival of graffiti committee

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A graffiti committee will be revised in an attempt to keep tagging to a minimum.  

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City council approved a staff recommendation that will see the arts and culture vitality committee lead call a meeting with past graffiti members and invite other parties interested in collaboration.  

The cultural vitality committee oversees the community culture plan, the cultural policy and the public art policy.  

Brent Lamming, the city’s deputy CAO of community development and enterprise services, said there has been a heightened awareness of nuisance tagging this past summer, especially after two incidents that defaced the city’s rainbow pride crosswalk at Spring and Bay streets. It was also reported that vandals spraypainted offensive anti-Indigenous phrases at other locations downtown. 

A former graffiti committee created in November 2013 included representatives of city council, city staff, police, the Downtown Association, the arts council, Art Gallery, NORDIK Research Institute, PUC and Canada Post along with both school boards.  

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Over the course of a little more than a year, an educational brochure was created along with campaigns to remove nuisance graffiti and develop utility box wraps with designs by local arts. 

Some initiatives remain in place, including the Downtown Association Graffiti Removal Program, adopt-a-park program, public art murals and the traffic box wrap program. Programming for youth at the Northern Community Centre, the libraries and the Algoma and Youth Wellness Hub are also designed to keep youth busy and away from tagging.  

The revival of the committee is designed to work in partnership with school boards to highlight activities available to them, including those where they can strut their artistic talents with acceptable behavior.  

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Lamming said outreach is being done to revive the committee and it is expected to meet in the coming months to make recommendations and finalize its terms of reference before reporting back to council.  

“Tagging is always a challenge. It never really goes away,” Lamming said. “But there are avenues the committee can follow and things we can highlight or educate on so it’s always good to be on top of mind.” 

Lamming said information will be accessible on the city’s website for the community to report graffiti, in addition to reporting it to city police.  

For instance, graffiti on a city owned building should be reported to the city, while downtown graffiti should be reported to the Downtown Association.  

“Knowing who to report tagging to and having the information readily available is the key and that will be part of the education component we want to highlight again to remind the community of,” Lamming said. 

It’s expected a dedicated space on the city’s website will be created to educate the public on reporting nuisance graffiti and additional messaging related to public art.  

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