Graffiti sprayed on the large gym at the Palisades Recreation Center is an ongoing issue. Yesterday July 24, this editor was sent a photo, taken by a park visitor around 7 p.m. The graffiti was vile and racist.
That Palisades resident alerted the park office and told CTN, “The park staff is aware of the graffiti and put in a work order to address the problem.”
According to Pacific Palisades Community Council President Maryam Zar, Park Director Jasmine Dowlatshahi reported it to Recreation and Parks on Monday morning and said it “was urgent.”
Zar went to Council District 11’s office on Tuesday, so that the work order could be expeditated and graffiti painted over. When the council office reached out to RAP, it was told someone was already on the way to Pacific Palisades.
Around 11 a.m. there were Recreation and Park staff scaling a ladder to get to the second floor to paint over the offensive language.
CTN asked one of the workers how kids were gaining access to the second story of the structure. “Wish we knew that,” he said.
This editor, who used to climb on top of farm buildings, such as hen houses and barns, and scaled trees, took a walk around the building and found two potential places to access the second floor. One was using the railing, to pull up to window ledge and then pull up using the pipe to access the second floor. Once a nimble young person is on the second floor, they could help pull others up.
A second access point would be climbing the tree and going into the turret—which also seemed to be filled with colorful graffiti.
(Editor’s note: My husband used to paint over graffiti he found in town. Rather than leave something like this up for at least a day, and wait for a work order, it’s almost worth the liability to climb up on a ladder and paint over it.)
Very disappointing that this happened in the first place. How about blocking access to the turret while you are at it?