Grafitti Clean Up

Graffiti clean-up crew threatened 16 October 2006
By CRAIG JEFFREYOne suburb in Hawera is too dangerous for community corrections workers to remove graffiti.
Contractor Murray Sulzberger refused to allow his small team to enter a state housing area in Ramanui following a threat to shoot one of the workers if they touched a tagged iron fence.
"When I went to get my crew, one of them said he'd been warned by another community service worker (formerly known as PD workers) not to touch the fence, or his missus would shoot him," he said.
The 200-metre iron fence is tagged along its length with gang insignia and graffiti.
For safety reasons, Mr Sulzburger did not allow his workers to go to the area and, in future, would not wash graffiti off fences there.
Graffiti along Fairfield Rd is out of control, with nearly half of all fences up to Manawapou Rd being vandalised.
One house, which was recently moved onto a section and redecorated, had a brand new wooden fence covered in spray paint graffiti within a month of being built.
The South Taranaki District Council has doubled its graffiti removal budget for this financial year to $40,000.
A zero-tolerance policy and a proactive approach will see the council treat graffiti as vandalism.
"But the council cannot do it alone," community services manager Jan
Martin said.
At a meeting held at Ngati Ruanui Iwi's offices on Wednesday, representatives from police, Black Power, Child, Youth and Family and Maori wardens unanimously agreed to enter a partnership with the council and develop a strategy to solve the problem.
The representatives agreed a modified crimebusters diversion scheme, such as that which operates in Porirua, could work in Hawera.
The scheme had been developed to make youths under 17 accountable for their criminal offending.
It targets first and second-time offenders, who are put to work cleaning up the mess and are in full view of the public on weekends.