Walk the beat with a bucket

I am a longtime resident of this city and a senior citizen. In the last week, I and my bucket of soapy water have cleaned the graffiti off the bus stop windows by Safeway, two concrete walls and three signs.

Instead of putting up hanging plants and signs pointing everywhere, let’s worry about the first thing our out-of-town guests see when they pull in. A giant building covered in graffiti. This is showing up everywhere.

This is not art or freedom of expression. It’s trespassing, destruction of private and public property and vandalism.

Whitefish is not a Third-World country or the ghetto, slum, gang barrio in East L.A. It’s not a freight car at the rail station in Seattle or Portland. It’s our home and community.

To the wannabe little thugs that are doing this in the shadows of the night, know that the police will catch you and arrest you. The courts will charge your parents for the cleanup.

The walls of our post office and the wall in the alley behind it are covered. That is defacing federal property. Covering stop signs and no trespassing signs is a safety issue.

Let’s set up a crimestopper site with a reward and stop this before you can no longer call this a tourist destination.

So I will continue to clean it off when I see it, not because I have the time or strength, but because I love this town. But instead of thinking of ways you can raise my taxes, you might want to walk the beat with a bucket and work on the situation.

— Diane Rice, Whitefish