Letter to Editor:

Vandalism is becoming rampant in Gravenhurst and now seems a form of entertainment for vandals.

Vandals destroy our personal property, town heritage and town public building walls through damage or graffiti tagging.

Think as examples the graffiti painted recently on the Heritage Sanatorium Summer House or the broken car windshields on First Street.  The broken Canada flags placed on Gravenhurst’s main street for Canada Day. Or the damaged walkway bridge at the Muskoka Wharf. And the E-bikes driven across the gardens.

Finally just this past week broken pioneer headstones in the Saint James cemetery.

It will increase obviously unless something or someone stops it.

So how to stop it?

Look to what works in other cases or jurisdictions.

Here in Gravenhurst the vandalism and drug dealing at Gull Lake Rotary Park was largely stopped with Closed Circuit TV cameras (CCTV).

But these CCTV cameras must be monitored to actually prevent the vandalism in progress – not just aid in the apprehension later by police.

Let’s look at this idea.

Our town’s CCTV cameras are wireless so these can be monitored by town staff; but most staff are not watching screens on the weekend or evenings when most offences occur.

We need to fix that. How about this fix.

Our CCTV camera are wireless. So let’s discuss with the local OPP in Gravenhurst how we can link our cameras  to the OPP screens so hopefully the OPP could view these cameras and respond while the vandalism is occurring and apprehend the culprit.

Graffiti tagging is the way individuals claim “ownership” of an object or surface by applying their own graffiti on the object. (Somewhat like a dog urinating on his favourite bush.)

It has been positively shown that when the graffiti artists’s hard work painting and tagging is immediately painted over  — they soon realize that their time and efforts have been wasted — and he stops tagging that surface.

Reluctantly, at least until we get control of the vandalism surge,  it has become necessary to act proactively with CCTV and the OPP on this problem in Gravenhurst.

Or Gravenhurst will become a town known for what we cannot be proud of.

So, mayor and town councillors, don’t leave this bad legacy.

Candidates and voters think about it, too.

This is beyond budgets or bylaws — act now.

Bob Barnes,

Gravenhurst