City wants public’s help in fighting vandalism

Who’s usually stuck with paying for vandalism damage? Brawley City Mayor Sam Couchman said that sadly the taxpayer picks up the tab.

A building in downtown and the former historic Planters Hotel are examples of building’s destroyed by vandalism recently.

“Some teenagers breaking into buildings. They would break into the facility, they would steal some things and they would set a fire to cover their tracks. But we do have some dumpster fires, we do have fires that are set deliberately by people,” Couchman said.

Repairs can run over $200,000 dollars annually.

“The cost is placed on the public because you pay taxes for that and then we have to utilize city money to repair things that we really don’t have budgeted,” Couchman said.

Vandalism is in downtown and all over town.

“We have a full-time graffiti person that goes around painting out the graffiti. Proactive about going out there notifying the owners of the buildings that may possibly be potential vandalize targets, if they’re abandoned or if the owner’s not there or if they’re not being occupied. We have the fire department looking at that. We have the police department looking at those kind of issues and public works, also,” Couchman said.

They would like residents to report vandalism when they see it happening.

“We’re very concerned about vandalism, especially in our parks and stuff, because it’s costing us thousands of dollars to repair,” Couchman said.