Graffiti is a big problem in Tahlequah, and city council members recently voted to build an expensive fence around the pavilion by Norris Park to try and curtail the defacing of that site.
The skate park is another victim of the practice of defacing property with tags and obscene messages. The old pavilion and pump house left over from the era when the city operated a pool in that area, are also covered in graffiti.
Brian Speake, recreation superintendent for the city of Tahlequah, is battling the illegal practice with scrub brushes and expensive labor hours.
“For us, this is the stuff I have to come down and clean up – anything sexual, racial, hate speech, curse words – because there’s not just teenagers down here, I’ve seen 5 year olds [using the park],” Speake said.
Speake has accepted the fact that there is always going to be graffiti and the city can never stay ahead of the taggers and amateur artists.
“We come down ever so often and when we start to see [the offensive painting], we try to come in and clean it up or paint over it,” Speake said.
The paint doesn’t clean off easily as the concrete is porous. Last year, Speake said, the city spent several hundred dollars in graffiti removal, not counting the labor hours of city employees.
Damage has happened at the pavilion by Norris Park to the point that Speake and Ray Hammons, compliance officer for the city, presented a plan to council members to enclose the facility with a wrought iron fence.
“The biggest thing that is going on down there is a lot of vandalism, a lot of tagging,” Hammons said at the Oct. 2 council meeting.
After a lengthy discussion between city staff and council members, a vote of 3-1 passed the motion to go ahead and build the fence. Stephen Highers, Ward 3 Councilor, expressed his concern that the $71,000 price tag would not address the bigger picture.
Highers wrapped up his comments by saying he believes the issue is a bigger one than what installing a fence will fix.
“Now those people are going [to go] somewhere else, on the side of that fence, [or the alleys where businesses are],” Highers said at the council meeting. “We have a bigger problem to solve, and I personally do not think this is the [answer].”
City leaders and employees do not know for certain who is responsible for the illegal spray painting. Opinions vary if it is kids looking for a way to express their individualism, or gang related.
“I don’t know if it’s parents not teaching their children better, or gang related,” Speake said. “If it’s a freedom of expression thing, then why aren’t they doing that to their parents’ house?”
A respondent to the Sept. 30 Saturday Forum on the TDP Facebook page on what should be done about the graffiti issue, Kathy Ryals of Tahlequah, expressed the same thought.
“Those that condone and even encourage graffiti on public property should first offer up their own private property (if they have any) as a canvass,” Ryals said.
On a sunny Sunday afternoon, Nicholas Booth, Kelsey Muskrat and Abby Hathaway spent the afternoon enjoying the skate park. Their comments agreed with many of the respondents on the forum.
Muskrat and Hathaway both like the paintings and expressions, and thought it made the area “look less bland.”
“Graffiti is awesome,” Shelby Tannehill of Tahlequah said on the forum. “It allows for uncensored self-expression, something we need more of in this country!”
Regarding the pavilion at the skate park, Muskrat felt it was a waste of space.
“They need to tear down the [pavilion] cause it’s a mess,” Muskrat said. “There’s nothing in it.”
The idea of putting up cameras for security was broached at the council meeting but nothing was decided.
“We need more security cameras, and it might deter some people,” Booth said of the skate park.
Booth, a recent transplant to Tahlequah, enjoys the skate park and expressed the opinion that the offensive words and tagging shouldn’t happen, but liked the pieces that were actually art.
In the forum, people voted on the questions regarding graffiti in the skate park and how the problem should be dealt with and commented on the best solutions.
Kelly Anquoe, an artist in Tahlequah, said that the city built the park and knew there would be uncontrolled activities. David Dick concurred and expressed the opinion that it was the city’s responsibility to clean off until a way is found to prevent the problem.
Others stated that as long as the graffiti is not inappropriate, why not allow the decorations and graffiti is a part of the skate park culture. Others suggested building a wall specifically for people to paint their art.
Of the respondents, 36.5% said to do nothing and leave it be, 14.9% said make the perpetrators clean it up and offer incentives, 21.6% believe they should clean it up and be punished, 6.8% think the park and recreation department should clean it up occasionally, and 5.4% are undecided.