What a week at council...Not only do our councillors have time to entertain fanciful, secret dreams of Justin Timberlake (and let's face it, who hasn't?), they still found time to get down to brass tacks. The real nitty-gritty. The truly pressing...
Graffiti!
Arghhh!
Yeah, you'd better scream, bucko. Graffiti will seduce your children and make them paint on things.
And the city is not going to take it anymore.
(Well, sometimes they are.)
(But on their own terms, bucko!)
First, at Tuesday's Committee of the Whole meeting, council spent almost three hours debating a draft by-law addressing graffiti. Approved in principle, it will return to council, probably this fall, for a public hearing before it can be officially adopted.
The new rules call for fines up to $2,000 or 30 days in jail for actual offenders. That wasn't the big sticking point—the biggest problem for councillors was the section designed to encourage speedy clean-up: property owners would have to remove graffiti within 10 days of being notified. If not, the city would do the cleaning, and send the bill to the property owner via their tax bill. Shockingly, some property and business owners aren't cool with that.
The bylaw has been debated before. Opinion on council ranges from enthusiastically pro (Linda Mosher) to conditionally con (Russell Walker).
The other question—the ever-present graffiti question—what's art, and what's vandalism? Despite the city's definitive stance, the line is still blurred.
The city's graffiti management plan is also in danger of confusing the issue. On Wednesday, in an ongoing series of community art projects advertised under the umbrella of "graffiti management," the city announced 16 local artists were being enlisted to paint a mural along Bedford Row.
In a similar project in March, the city unveiled a "Youth Mural" along the Bedford Highway—that project, designed by junior high students, mimicked traditional graffiti to make its point. It features what appears to be tagging over a brick wall, but on a city-condoned space with a positive message about exploring creativity, it was deemed acceptable.
The idea, in theory, is to harness the work of grafitti artists and turn it into productive work for the city. But the line between art and vandalism isn't so much form as it is permission, and the ultimate message is that only commissioned work can be vital and positive. It's a point that's bound to rankle some artists.
And there are still vague points in the by-law. According to a rep from Nova Scotia Power, one of the things yet to be properly addressed in the by-law is the effect it might have on sites that already permit graffiti, like the Nova Scotia Power parking lot wall off Morris Street. ("I was told that it came up in the debate, and they didn't have an answer.")
Heather MacLeod-Baudelot is an HRM staffer working on the Bedford Row project.
"To be clear, unwelcome graffiti is vandalism," stresses MacLeod-Baudelot. "This graffiti management project is two-fold. It's community and council and any sponsors of the event investing in local artists—that's connected to the cultural plan. Also, this is an opportunity for the downtown area to build relationships with artists."
The debate goes on. Art, vandalism or just an excuse to leave your apartment, the Bedford Row projects will have a public launch at noon on Friday, with the work following over the next two days (the street will be closed for 48 hours).
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