[Rfu-station] Skateboard Damage and Grafitti at the IMC

[Mike Lehman]

I noticed that the center handrail on the front, west steps of the 
building was loose a few days ago. This is very recent damage.

Closer examination revealed scratches running the length of the 
handrail, directly on top of it. There is no indication that a vehicle 
came up on the sidewalk and hit it. Thus, given the evidence, I 
concluded that the damage was very likely caused by someone attempting 
to style on the handrail with a skateboard. It will likely cost the IMC 
several hundred dollars to repair this thoughtless damage.

There have also been a number of incidents of graffiti on and around the 
IMC. This has been a problem throughout the neighborhood recently. While 
graffiti can represent a means of expression under specific conditions, 
the graffiti seen recently has little to no artistic content and 
represents mere tagging. Graffiti taggers give good graffiti artists a 
bad name, which is clearly what is going on, given the response of those 
I've heard from across the political spectrum. Graffiti-ists of all 
types also realize they run the risk of being turned in. If you see 
someone painting graffiti, please call 911 and report them. Artists 
don't mind suffering for their art. Taggers should just be stopped.

It would be good to get the name of anyone involved to pass it along to 
the IMC-Finance group, if possible, but please don't run any personal 
risks in doing so. We can't afford to fix things that others tear up for 
no good reason, but we will attempt to recover damages from anyone 
involved in such behavior.
Mike Lehman