Symptom of a sick city. Blaming/penalizing/billing of the innocent for the actions of others.
In my hometown of Minneapolis we have had in the near past and possibly right now; People in policy making positions who think graffiti is acceptable, something to be lauded and defended. The notion of punishing responsible parties or those who can legitimately hold taggers accountable is considered a bad policy. So says the previous posters on this issue. Senator Berglin is proposing to bring some small pathetic measure of accountability to the law breaker. Yet it is met with hostility by the non-affected classes. Currently the city penalizes the owner of the property for the action of any of our children. The city demands that the property owner report damage to her property, repair it by a certain date ( regardless of the cost), or else be fined, taxed or possibly deprived of your license to engage in commerce. Issues such as this make the city such an easy target for a--kicking. No personal responsibility. Get it together citizens of the city. Graffiti is a no brainer, never debatable. It is destruction of property. Craig Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] Former Mpls Housing Provider Rogers MN 55374 ? Do you think incidents of graffiti will drop further > > once the state goes after parents of taggers, especially parents who are > > living below federal poverty guidelines? > > Sorry I didn't state my position in the original post. If what I've read > here about Sen. Berglin's bill is true, it's a very bad idea. I don't think > penalizing parents for their children's actions will work, and I don't think > it's fair, since there are many reasons kids do bad things. > > I also want to briefly respond to David Shove: > > Those who argue that graffiti should be tolerated because billboards are > subscribe to the "eye for an eye" ethos (literally), that I think comes up > short. There are many of us who hate billboards AND graffiti - maximizing > visual pollution is a really counterproductive idea. > > I could see a shred of morality for this argument if taggers limited their > defacement to ads. But they don't. Ask the owners of the historic sandstone > It's Greek To Me" building, who had to pay thousands to remove a tag from > the top of their builiding - I watched as chunks of sandstone came raining > down from the necessary powerwashing. > > Or the folks in Lyndale, who paid for neighborhood welcome signs in multiple > languages, only to have them defaced by fans of the band Wookie Foot bearing > bumperstickers. > > It's easy (and often correct) to reflexively side with the powerless over > the powerful. But there are many victims here who don't really qualify as > the latter, and don't want to be caught in the visual crossfire. TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Send all posts in plain-text format. 2. Cut as much of the post you're responding to as possible. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
