A new technique
Police, merchant work to stop graffiti
By Katie Pizza
Argus Observer
Friday, January 2, 2009 8:29 AM PST
Ontario — As graffiti taggers continue to make their mark on area businesses and residences alike, the city and Kinney Bros. & Keele Hardware have teamed up to offer residents and store owners a free way to remove undesirable marks from their community.
Ontario Police Chief Mike Kee first developed the idea to create a graffiti clean-up kit after hearing about a similar program in Reno, Nev.
There, city leaders saw a significant decrease in graffiti after they created “graffiti kits.”
The Reno Police Department instituted the kits in 2003, when there were 1,650 graffiti sites in a six-month time period. The next year, that number was lowered 916, a 20 percent reduction.
Kee then spoke to Mara Slinker of Kinney Bros. & Keele Hardware. The two developed a similar idea for Ontario, and Slinker collected graffiti cleanup items, such as rags, scrub sponges, rubber gloves, heavy duty paper towels and a 2-ounce bottle of graffiti remover. She then used those supplies to create graffiti clean-up kits and handed them over to OPD.
Now, OPD has 10 individual bags of the supplies, with 10 more on the way, Slinker said. She said the bags, which are reusable Kinney & Keele shopping bags, and the rest of the items cost about $4. She said she sold the 10 bags to the city at cost. She also said she feels, even though it is still in the trial stage, the program is an important one.
“There is a lot of graffiti in town,” she said. “People keep getting hit.”
Slinker said customers come into Kinney Bros. & Keele Hardware on a daily basis looking for graffiti remover, which the store also sells.
“Project Dove got hit just the other day,” she said last week.
Slinker also said Ontario Mayor Joe Dominick has some commercial-grade graffiti remover he would like to contribute. However, Slinker said she hasn’t yet obtained the remover and put it into smaller bottles to include in the kits as of yet.
“We donated some of the stuff too,” she said. “If we need to do more, let’s do it.”
Kee said he plans to get the word out more when the weather gets warmer.
However, he said he is currently looking for 20 volunteers to take the bags and clean up graffiti-ridden areas around town. After removing the graffiti, Kee requested the volunteers report to the city the places they cleaned up.
“They just report back with how much they do,” he said. “We’re going to keep track.”
Kee said the department will deliver the kits to interested volunteers.
Slinker said the program is important to her because of the impact it could have on Ontario.
“I just care about my community,” she said. “I care about how it looks.”
Slinker also said she serves on the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and knows a town with less graffiti will attract more businesses and residents.
However, the current graffiti kits are not the only way Ontario is combating the taggers.
Councilman-elect Norm Crume requested and received the use of the Malheur County Juvenile Department’s graffiti-removing machine for a planned city cleanup slated for May 16. This use comes with the stipulation the clean-up group would replace all chemicals used in the foray.
