KIMBERLY — Earlier this week, village of Kimberly summer staff members spent two days covering up graffiti on the murals in the CE bike tunnel. In less than a day vandals returned and defaced the murals again.
“Very disheartening. Every mural that was fixed has been vandalized again within 1 day #heartbroken,” read a post on the village’s social media.
The Safe Routes tunnel under County Highway CE has been targeted by vandals for many years, village officials say.
The village has partnered with Kimberly High School art classes and held community mural classes to keep adding positive messaging to the tunnel and to cover up graffiti – but in the past year they say they just weren’t able to keep up with the graffiti.
The tunnel is supposed to be a safe passage for cyclists and pedestrians to cross under CE – not a location where anyone with a can of paint can express themselves, the village says.
“Whomever Madison is, she signed her name 10x – Madison, please don’t come back with your paint, it’s not appreciated,” officials wrote in the Facebook posty.
This week, Special Summer Assistant Hallie Dix led a group of staff from Sunset Beach to cover up all the graffiti in the tunnel.
It was a two-day effort and all paint used was left over from other projects.
“To Hallie, Hailey, Max, Vada, Alayna, Taylor, Brianne, and James – Thank you for spreading positivity and making a difference in the Kimberly community!” read the post.
But their work lasted less than a day as vandals returned to the tunnel and painted over the murals again.
Village staff said they are proud to assist in making Kimberly a great place to live, learn, work and play. They are asking the community to help them keep it that way by cutting down on vandalism in Kimberly.
“In summation,” the village wrote, “this is a call to action Village of Kimberly! See something, say something.”
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