North Battleford city council at Monday's hybrid in-person and online meeting at the Don Ross Centre. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW staff)

By Angela Brown

Volunteer effort

CMHA proposes graffiti cover up initiative for North Battleford

Apr 12, 2022 | 7:40 AM

The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Battlefords Branch made a proposal to North Battleford city council to start a graffiti cover up initiative.

Executive Director Jane Zielke de Montbrun brought forth the idea when she appeared online as a delegation at Monday’s meeting.

“We propose a volunteer program that engages our members in removing graffiti throughout the city, from spring until fall each year, and ask that the city provide the supplies for that work,” she said in her submission.

Zielke de Montbrun said the project would offer participants “a sense of purpose, and community,” while making a positive difference in the city.

She noted that the volunteers would paint over where graffiti was identified on public structures. And, if they receive permission from individual property owners would cover up any patches of private back fences for example where graffiti was found.

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“We would never go and paint somebody’s fence or something like that without their permission,” Zielke de Montbrun said.

The only cost to the city would be for the paint and brushes for the task. The CMHA would provide the manpower and transportation.

Coun. Ross MacAngus said as long as property owners formally gave permission he did not have any issues.

He noted there is already a city bylaw in place requiring property owners to remove graffiti from their property within a certain number of days after an order is issued, or the city will go in and remove it on its own.

Coun. Kelli Hawtin liked the proposal, and recommended city administration bring back more information for council’s discussion.

“We continue to hear from the RCMP and the Citizens on Patrol that graffiti is an issue in our community,” she said. “We also hear from citizens that removal of graffiti is an issue for them because it’s time consuming. It’s costly. It’s an issue that people experience as a victim of crime, and yet they have to put in their time and effort, and their money, and they sometimes feel unsupported removing that same tag from their garage door.”

Hawtin said the CMHA proposal meets a lot of needs in the community.

City Manager Randy Patrick said the initiative would not be a clean up, but a cover up of the spot where the graffiti is found, such as on a back fence, using a closely matching colour.

He said he has seen this type of initiative done in another community with quite a bit of success in bringing down the amount of tagging.

“As fast as they were putting it up, we were taking it off,” Patrick said.

He added it’s nice to see people here who want to help the community.

Patrick will provide an operational plan with more details on the proposal for an upcoming meeting for council’s consideration.

Mayor David Gillan said following council’s meeting the concept looks like an interesting proposal from the local CMHA.

“The CMHA [are] coming forward with a proposal to work with the city to address a very serious issue in the city, with the graffiti, tagging and things that people are alarmed about,” he said. “For them to come forward and basically volunteer a service where we are providing just the materials it’s quite attractive to the city.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow