Shire Declares War on Graffiti
The Shire of Kalamunda has declared war on graffiti involving local stakeholders to combat graffiti as a community. A meeting held recently with the Shire President Donald McKechnie, the President of the Kalamunda Rotary Club, Bob Govan and the President of the Kalamunda Chamber of Commerce, Peter Stewart focused on the need for an alliance to put a stop to vandalism in the community.
Shire President Donald McKechnie was adamant it was time to take more affirmative action, saying “The three organisations have made available a $1,000 reward to persons whose assistance leads to a successful apprehension of graffiti culprits, by naming the owners of selected tags. The names of the recipients of the reward will be kept strictly confidential and will only be known by the police. We are pursing a range of further strategies including visiting offenders to discuss their tagging, the consequences, negative impacts on the community, making public the names of the offenders of the graffiti tags and asking other stakeholders to join in a renewed effort".
Thousands of dollars are spent each year in combating this evil menace that degrades our locality. We ask all Kalamunda residents to assist this initiative by removing the graffiti immediately and to respond with any information to the police.
Graffiti is an issue in Shires all over Australia, but it has been shown that a community approach is the most successful. 100% community support is essential in ensuring that the message gets across. Graffiti is unacceptable in our society. It is important that members of the community who get involved with vandalism in the form of graffiti understand the seriousness of their actions and seek legal opportunities in the local area to express themselves – or risk ending up in trouble with the law.