The city of Roswell welcomes reports of graffiti on its property so it can remove or cover it up with paint as soon as possible.
City Manager Chad Cole is asking that residents let the city know when they come upon this type of vandalism in parks and other city property.
Once city employees know about it, “we get rid of it,” said Jim Burress, the city’s special services director.
Parks employees will go to public areas where vandals habitually scrawl graffiti and tags, such as at the skate park, paths by the Roswell Museum, playgrounds, trails, bridges and even inside equipment meant for children to play by climbing into it. The inspection ensures that it’s cleaned up as soon as possible, Burress said.
City staff prefer to get rid of graffiti sooner rather than later because allowing it to remain visible for too long can attract other vandals to add their own.
At the skate park next to the Roswell Recreation and Aquatic Center, there have been multiple graffiti incidents.
“Skaters have been trying to make it look nice,” Burress said about the murals that have been added recently. “But we’ve had beautiful artwork there that has been tagged.”
Some vandals won’t scrawl on murals but others will, he noted.
It seems that some vandals feel reluctant about covering someone else’s creations, said Kathy Lay, the city’s volunteer and outreach coordinator.
She added that murals and other forms of public art not only make an area more visually appealing. It provides a deterrent against graffiti and tagging.
People can contact the police for an incident report. Removal of the graffiti can be done by filling out a FixIt form available on the city’s website, roswell-nm.gov/pages.
For people interested in being artists and not vandals, the city is open to having murals in certain locations.
“If you think you’re good enough, come find me,” Burress stressed. ”Painting murals is a lot more fun than destroying things.”
Creations must be family-friendly and not depict or include words that are profane or obscene, Burress emphasized.
The city is no longer removing graffiti for private property owners, which had been a service offered in the past. This is so it wouldn’t be competing with businesses that remove it for profit, Cole said.