Just as the Hawthorne Bridge festival will echo the reception given the remodeled library, some among us dread a repeat performance of the vandals' mindless assault. Mostly, the official response is to paint over the graffiti, and, more intrusively, to require property owners to do so. The city offers to help with painting over the marks, and fast cleanup does appear to deter tagging somewhat. But most paint-overs at best leave behind an obvious patch of fresh paint, and a ghost of the tag therefore remains. With unpainted brick walls, thorough cleanup is always expensive and often impossible.
Government does very little.
Sara Fisher, was stupid enough to do her dirty work in the plain view of a police officer. That's where the Hawthorne Bridge could come in. It doesn't take an expert criminologist to realize that every tagger in Portland will be tempted to be among the first to leave a mark on the repainted bridge. Within a few weeks, the graffiti weasels who are supposedly so difficult to catch in the act will surely show their faces. They can't resist.