$400,000 a year on grafiti?

I read the other day in the Daily Texan that the City of Austin spends $400,000 a year cleaning up graffiti around town and plans to prosecute graffiti artists. There is a task force to hunt the artists down and identify their tags to then fine them. I am not a fan of poorly done graffiti in bad places though I enjoy well-done work as well as the uncontrollability of street art. Philly started their amazing city mural program as a way to control graffiti around the city. The program was designed so that caught graffiti artists would have to do community service and help with city murals along side artists and volunteers. Amazing murals now cover the city.
It would be great if some of that $400,000 could go into Austin murals! Austin has a weird history of not supporting public art mural projects and even racist blotters covering up Mexican American murals around the Holly Power plant (John Yancey gave me a bit of history about it last year). I am happy to say that the 2 youth mural projects I have done at Kealing Jr. High have not suffered any graffiti tags over the last 2 years. It has shows me that youth can handle a paint brush and respect each others work if given the chance.