Wednesday a Kern County
grand jury came out with their findings about the graffiti problem that has
gotten worse in the county over the last 20 years.
"Graffiti has always
been an issue on the Kern River, whether it was in the Sequoia National Forest
or in the Kern Canyon or even in Bakersfield through Hart Park and Ming Lake
areas," Gary Ananian, Executive Director and Founder of the Kern River
Conservancy, said. "For some reason taggers love to go down to the river
and tag on rocks. I've never understood why but they do it."
Ananian says a new state
law has cause the graffiti problem to get worse. We did see a huge, huge rise
in graffiti in the Canyon and in Bakersfield. There was just graffiti
everywhere and I think it's the lure of the criminals know they're not going to
get caught, and they're not going to get caught or if they do get caught
they're not going to get prosecuted,'" Ananian, said.
The study reports there's
different types of graffiti and different reasons behind it. The report lists 5
types of graffiti: 1) gang graffiti used for threats of violence or to mark
territories, 2) copycat gang graffiti, 3) tagger graffiti from someone with a
signature art style or more complex art, conventional graffiti-isolated and
typically from "exuberant" youth and lastly, 4) ideological graffiti,
which sends a political, racial, ethnic or religious message.
Volunteer Chaplain for the
Bakersfield Police Department, Angelo Frazier says our young generation needs
to be mentored and taught freedom of expression does not mean you have a right
to spray graffiti on public property.
"I think we have to
first start with our kids and teach them about the value of property and I
don't know if that's being taught anymore, and really what the first amendment,
freedom of speech means. It's not an absolute right that you can do and write
on anything and say whatever you want to anybody.
Eyewitness News spoke to
Chaplain Frazier on a section of MLK Jr. Blvd, in Bakersfield, full of graffiti.
He says it was ironic we were having this discussion on that street of all
places, when you think about what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for.
"He was about
non-violence, he was about non-destruction," Chaplain Frazier, said.
"As matter of fact they would always leave a place better than they found
it and I think we need to teach out young kids that and we need to value that
too."
According to the city of
Bakersfield, they have a graffiti abatement program with 12 trucks and 12 full
time employees who respond to reports of graffiti and remove graffiti.
The Kern River Conservancy
is hosting a cleanup day at the Boulder Gulch Campground in Lake Isabella,
Saturday April 23rd from 9:30AM to 1PM, where they will be picking up trash and
removing graffiti from rocks.
BakersfieldNow KBAK
by David Kaplan
March 24th 2022
No comments:
Post a Comment