Please do not spray graffiti onto the Rexburg Skate Park.

That’s the word from Mayor Jerry Merrill, who recently posted a Facebook plea asking parents to tell their children that it’s wrong to spray paint the park or anything else, and to urge them to stop friends and fellow skaters from doing so as well.

“One thing I’d like to make people aware of is some of the vandalism going on here (at the skate park),” he said. “There’s a lot of graffiti, which actually a lot of it is pretty good artwork, but there’s also some pretty naughty words. I encourage all of you to teach your kids to not do that.”

Merrill found out about the graffiti after a young man emailed him and told him “naughty words” had been sprayed at the skate park.

“(He told me) there were a few not too great words painted over here,” he said. “The thing here is it takes money and time we could be spending on other things to help improve our city instead of wasting our money on materials to get rid of dumb graffiti.”

According to costadvisor.com, it costs as much as $900 to sandblast, grout and apply anti-graffiti coating to a graffitied wall.

“Even if it does not look like it at first glance, removing graffiti is a pretty tricky business,” it said. “There are three different ways to achieve this. Steam cleaning is an option, or a cleaning agent can be used, or the facade can be sandblasted. The technique which is ultimately chosen heavily depends on the substrate (underlying layer), and the type of paint used.”

Graffiti makes Rexburg look like a dirty place to live, and Merrill’s attempts to cover up the “artwork” make it look even worse, he said.

“I went over there with spray paint,” Merrill said. “It’s not costly to spray over it, but it takes time. To spray paint over it makes it unsightly and makes it a trashy place instead of making it look more like a clean, inviting place. On the other hand, having those nasty descriptions makes it an even worse trashy nasty place. Spraying over them makes it less nasty and less trashy, at least you don’t have the kids exposed to those kinds of comments.”

The city has suffered its fair share of graffiti artists attempting to express themselves, Merrill said.

“It happens all the time, and not just at the skate park but in our parks,” he said. “(The graffiti artists) think that’s fun to spray paint on the walls and different things all over the place.”

Occasionally, the city catches artists in the act, Merrill said.

“When we do that, we require them to go clean it off,” he said. “That takes a lot of hours of scrubbing and a lot of hard work. So, hopefully, that helps them realize it’s not a quick and easy thing to get rid of.”

It’s been suggested the city install cameras at the skate park to catch graffiti artists in the act. Doing so may be cost prohibitive as there’s limited access to electricity at the skate park, Merrill said.

“We don’t have real good power and internet. That’s expensive, the cameras are expensive,” he said. “The trouble is that it happens at night. They wear hoodies a lot of the time. Even with cameras it’s hard to catch them and know who it is. It’s a very expensive solution.”

Merrill urges graffiti artists to share their artwork at some kind of legal exhibit where they can showcase their artistic talents.

“That would be even better,” he said. “They could express themselves on something that could be admired by everybody instead of being disgusting.”

Merrill also hopes that skaters will monitor what goes on in the skate park, stop fellow skaters from defacing the skate park, or call police for help.

“I’d rather appeal to people’s goodness and ask them not to do it,” he said.