Well, that didn’t take very long

As expected, it didn’t take long for vandals to start undoing the volunteer work of Albany’s “graffiti chasers” on the Periwinkle Bikepath behind Lowe’s, near Ninth Avenue.

The bike took me through that section of the path on Wednesday. The photos tell the story of what there was to see.

Volunteers had gone there in late April to cover up graffiti on about 600 linear feet of the textured wall that separates the path from the back lot of Lowe’s home improvement store.

Much of the time, vandals there have a free hand because that section of the path is not used much. It doesn’t go anywhere. At its north end, it stops on the narrow sidewalk of Ninth Avenue, a three-lane segment of two highways, Oregon 99E  and US 20.

Why should anyone care about the appearance of that wall? One answer is that if people are able to vandalize someone else’s property with impunity, time after time, this signals some kind of decline in the character of the community.

Deterrence might be one response, or punishment if deterrence fails.  I’ve never been there but I imagine that Singapore has very little graffiti because if you’re caught there, the punishment is a stiff fine and up to eight blows with a cane on your naked behind.

I don’t expect Oregon would go for caning people caught defacing public property. But we might start by carrying out the penalties specified in Oregon law. For damaging property with graffiti, ORS 164.383 calls for a sentence of up to 100 hours of community service, such as cleaning up graffiti done by the culprit and others.

But first, culprits have to be caught. For years the wall along the path has borne signs warning of security cameras, but no cameras are in place.

Now that Albany officials are fond of cameras to catch speeders, the city could start installing similar technology to catch vandals armed with wire cutters and paint. (hh)

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