Kalispell council member organizing graffiti cleanup

Sick of seeing all the graffiti around town, especially with tourist season at hand, Kalispell City Council member Phil Guiffrida III is organizing a communitywide effort to get people out and cleaning it up for one day.

“I think it could be successful,” Guiffrida told other council members at their meeting Monday.

“If we got out there and got the commissioners out there with all the tagging in the county, that would really let people know this is an issue and seems to be getting worse,” he said. “I’ve seen new buildings tagged in just the last week.”

Guiffrida is trying to set a date for mid-July with a staging point where teams of volunteers can fan out to clean up graffiti around the city and then return for a barbecue afterward.

Right now he’s trying to prioritize high-traffic locations where graffiti is a problem, coordinate permission for its cleanup with private property owners and recruit other volunteers for both manpower and materials.

“There’s a lot of logistics to work through,” he said.

Kalispell Police Chief Roger Nasset said he backs Guiffrida’s initiative 100 percent, calling it a multi-faceted community effort to tackle a tough issue.

“People are just absolutely fed up with the graffiti and are willing to come together to take action,” he said.

Businesses such as Stat Restoration and Allied 24-7 Restoration have been volunteering what they can to help the city clean up graffiti reported to police on a near-daily basis.

“We help them with supplies, but they’re using their own equipment and elbow grease to get it taken care of,” Nasset said.

Nasset just returned from the Montana conference of police chiefs and every chief there reported problems with graffiti.

“It’s a trend and it’s going on all over the state,” he said.

Graffiti is a property crime that can be quick and easy to commit and hard to catch someone doing. The last five people arrested for it in Kalispell have been young adults, Nasset said.

“I know people get discouraged with it,” he said. “I’ve been here almost 19 years and can recall twice where a citizen called in someone doing graffiti.”

For more information or to help coordinate or volunteer, contact Guiffrida at 309-2018 or by email at pguiffrida@kalispell.com.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.