Elimination Games

continued

John Fingerle, president and co-owner of Fingerle Lumber (which sees its own share of graffiti), says the DDA program attracts a fairly steady stream of customers. Anderson Paint's general manager, John Rudolph, says requests spike during bouts of media attention. The DDA underwrites up to $25 per purchase, while allotments last.

With the 2012 arrests, which reportedly included a twenty-two-year-old male, the town's anti-graffiti posture has proved more than mere exercise. The muscle may not yet be Olympian: some say the graffiti problem is worse, some say it's lessened. But Pollay says the DDA program has an impact, that markings now appear mostly in the outer neighborhoods. A cursory tour seems to support that observation.

One thing most people working on the problem agree on is that graffiti begets graffiti. The sooner you eliminate it, the less likely more will appear.