Community Corner

How to Counter Graffiti at Yosemite Park

Would planting cactus or thorny bushes in front of the most vulnerable walls deter taggers?

The big, yellow street-facing wall of the , adjacent to , is probably one of the most eye-catching sights on the mile-and-a-half stretch of Yosemite Drive between Eagle Rock Boulevard and Figueroa Street.

“Every week or so, the wall gets hit by graffiti,” says Eagle Rock resident David Drum, who lives near Eagle Rock High and took a photograph depicting the latest act of vandalism on Monday (see above). “The city comes back and paints it again—this has been going on for, I think, at least two years.”

Perennial Menace At The Rec Center

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Tagging has been a huge problem at the Yosemite Recreation Center, especially on the wall behind the swimming pool complex located on the park’s south side. In an attempt to monitor—and discourage—tagging, the Department of Recreation and Parks installed a 24-hour surveillance camera between the swimming pool and the amphitheater at the park’s southernmost end this past April. (A previously existing camera within the swimming pool complex was moved 20 feet east, closer to Eagle Rock High, to enable the two cameras to monitor a wider area.)

Proposed Solutions

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“Why doesn't the city install cameras—or plant some cactus or bougainvillea [bushes] below the wall to discourage taggers?” asks Drum, whose debut novel, Introducing the Richest Family in America, was the subject of a profile on Eagle Rock Patch in February 2011.

What do readers think? Wouldn’t planting cactus or other prickly plants close to certain walls at the rec center be a low-cost, environmentally-friendly deterrent to tagging?

Further, given the City’s strained budgets, would you be willing to pitch in a few dollars if a community fund were set up for this purpose?

Finally, what do you think of the idea of getting corporate sponsors to fund the planting of cactus around the walls of the rec center most vulnerable to tagging?


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