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East Oregonian
Graffiti:
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is reported, and some are
reported multiple times. The
problem waxes and wanes, the
timing difficult to nail down,
the chief said in March.
“And right now, it is a boil
on the butt of this city,” he
said.
City ordinance puts the
burden of graffiti removal on
the property owner, giving
the owner two business days
to get the paint covered up,
although officials work with
owners on that timeline.
In a sense, the ordinance
victimizes the building owner
twice, the chief said, “but we
need a way to entice the owner
to take action.”
There is a volunteer corp,
Milton-Freewater Graffiti
Busters, that helps owners
with donated painting
supplies, a power washer, an
old truck to haul it all and
muscle to apply the coverup
paint.
Their efforts are a big help
to the city, Schaffner said.
The founder of the group
declined to be identified for
this story.
Recently, the first Sher-
wood Trust leadership class
based in Milton-Freewater,
part of a program created
by the nonprofit foundation
meant to develop community
leadership skills in people,
chose gang tagging and street
art as its project.
How that will look is
unshaped for now, said class
member Dave Dahlin, but
the class is likely to take an
approach of how to help build-
ing owners avoid unwanted
spray painting.
“We don’t see much
tagging where things are
well kept up and well lit,”
Dahlin said, adding his group
is discussing details such as
aesthetics and better lighting.
“We don’t expect to solve
the big issues of the town,” he
said. “However, we do believe
in the impact of starting some-
thing positive and small, and
shifting the downward part of
the cycle to upward.”
City government itself
can’t be the whole solution to
Greg Lehman/Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
Sprayed and peeling paint mix Feb. 16, 2022, on a com-
mercial building in Milton-Freewater, the cans of evidence
dropped on the ground.
the problem and neither can
volunteers, Boedigheimer
said, and each of his officers
only can be in one place at a
time.
Even then, arrests are
rarely a deterrent — the courts
are so backlogged, a property
offender is not going to spend
the night in jail, he said.
“If someone has a solution,
tell me,” Boedigheimer said.
“God knows we want to hear
that.”
Even Portland’s educa-
tion campaign against graf-
fiti years ago netted an arrest
rate of less than 0.1% of the
number of incidents, he said.
“There are 2,500 build-
ings in this town, each with
four sides,” he said. “You do
the math on being able to see
it happening.”
When school is out and
teens are often under less
supervision, that’s when the
cans of paint seem to come
out, Schaffner noted.
No store that sells the prod-
uct can really stop youth from
getting it, he said.
“If kids can get alcohol,
they can get spray paint,” he
said.
Everybody pays
In Oregon, “unlawfully
applying graffiti” comes under
intentional property damage
and is a Class A violation.
In the eyes of the law, “graf-
fiti” means any inscriptions,
words, figures or designs that
are marked, etched, scratched,
drawn, painted, pasted or
otherwise affixed to the
surface of property.
A judge can impose fines
and up to 100 community
service hours. That time must
include removing graffiti,
either defacement made by the
defendant or graffiti created
by someone else.
Possessing “a graffiti
implement” — be it paint,
ink, chalk, dye or another
substance meant to spray,
mark, etch, scratch or carve
surfaces — is a Class C viola-
tion under state law and can
net an offender fines and up
to 50 hours of community
service.
In Deschutes County in
Central Oregon, for exam-
ple, there is no cost for graf-
fiti removal services. When
a report comes in, a Sheriff’s
Office staff helps the property
owner remove or cover the
paint. If that owner doesn’t
have paint or can’t afford it,
the department does its best to
color match through donated
paint or buys it directly from
local suppliers.
The county’s juvenile
justice department sees graf-
fiti removal as “one of its
best examples of restorative
justice,” its website says.
Cleaning up the paint
(and other acts of vandal-
ism) engages kids in prob-
lem solving and gives them
an opportunity to help
victims and their commu-
nity in a meaningful, visi-
ble way. “The youth and our
community can see imme-
diate results of their service,
a result that is both tangible
and gratifying,” Deschutes
County officials said.
In Weston this past winter,
code enforcement officer Jack
Jasperson oversaw a group of
teens as they wire-brushed
their own graffiti off concrete,
a little at a time.
It was fortunate other
students had come forward to
let officials know of the unso-
licited art, Jasperson told the
Weston City Council.
Having to clean up after
themselves, then report what
they’d learned to the coun-
cil, was a fitting and effective
answer, Jasperson said then.
In Milton-Freewater,
Boedigheimer seconds the
involvement of the teens
responsible for the prob-
lem. He also firmly believes
more opportunities for youth,
coupled with parent involve-
ment, could significantly
reduce gang tagging, he said.
But decades into his career,
Boedigheimer has found
many parents are outright
frightened of their children
and don’t have the ability to
modify bad behavior or take
control of the situation, he
said.
“You take a gang member
wannabe and a scared parent
…,” he said.
Such teens call the shots
on when and where they spray
paint, the chief said, explain-
ing that in many taggings, the
symbols are a secret language
sending messages to those
able to decode them.
On the flip side of the coin
are angry property owners
who expect law enforce-
ment to solve the issue,
Boedigheimer said.
“The smaller the commu-
nity, the less crime it takes to
make everything seem really
bad. But we are no differ-
ent than Portland, except on
a microscopic scale. We are
a real city, and people are
getting fed up,” he said. “This
is like homelessness: You’re
always chasing the tail of this
monster. Until society, small
or giant, wants to step up and
take pride in their properties,
we’ll always be losing this.”
The current, aggres-
sive phase of gang tagging
will pass at some point,
Boedighiemer said.
“But it will pass much
faster,” he said, “if property
owners will cover it up.”
Saturday, April 16, 2022
UAS:
Continued from Page A1
a Cessna wheel fell off or
when a crosswind blew over
a plane. If you call us we
certainly respond. But we’re
not the National Transporta-
tion Safety Board.”
Chrisman and Corbett
said the test range was
committed to safety but
would not go out of its way
to advertise crashes, espe-
cially because they were
happening in sparsely popu-
lated areas and did not hurt
anyone. Corbett said some
of these incidents were like
when “an ambulance backs
into a car in a parking lot,”
a situation that might gener-
ate a 911 call but not a public
record.
Range Manager Darryl
Abling said the UAS range
makes a record of every test
operation and sends the data
to officials at the Univer-
sity of Alaska Fairbanks,
the institution that oversees
Oregon’s test range system,
who then forward it to the
Federal Aviation Adminis-
tration. A crash might trigger
an extra layer of reporting to
the FAA or NTSB depending
on the severity of the inci-
dent, but not every malfunc-
tion or emergency landing
needed to be cataloged.
Abling also said he didn’t
BMCC:
Continued from Page A1
At a time when BMCC is
facing increasing competi-
tion from nearby commu-
nity colleges in Washington
and trade schools, Brown-
ing said the staffing cuts
could actually help with
recruitment.
“We’re not actually
offering fewer classes,” he
said “We’re having fewer
people offer the classes
that we do currently have,
and we’ll be offering new
and different approaches
to some of the outcomes
so that (students are) better
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know where Bloomberg
sourced its information, but
its reporting didn’t align
with the range’s internal
data.
The Pendleton Fire
Department responds to
any fires at the airport, but
Fire Chief Jim Critchley
said he defers any details
about the cause of the fires
to range staff, comparing it
to the way he would defer to
St. Anthony Hospital when
the department’s work inter-
sects with the hospital’s.
Critchley said he contin-
ues to explore ways to staff
Pendleton Fire Station No. 3,
the station at the Pendleton
airport. In the meantime,
Critchley said the depart-
ment intends to relocate its
interns to housing at the
airport. The interns will
serve as reserves in their
off time, allowing them to
potentially respond to fires
at the airport during those
periods.
Eastern Oregon Regional
Airport Manager John
Honemann on April 13
reported 15 companies
were using the UAS Range
that day, either as resident or
itinerant clients. The range
conducts 500 to 1,000 oper-
ations per month. Chrisman
said the Pendleton range
could be the busiest in the
world and the number of
tests at the range looks to
triple this year.
employable upon comple-
tion. The assertion that
we’re offering fewer classes
is simply not borne out in
the data.”
While BMCC is holding
firm on its cuts, the faculty
union is not treating them
as a settled issue. Hern-
berg said the union plans to
explore its legal options and
is also planning a “vigor-
ous” public campaign to
convince the college to
reconsider its plans.
“We believe that there is
a sacred trust between this
community, these educa-
tors and our students, and
we’re going to do every-
thing we can to protect
that,” he said.