KEY POINTS:
Auckland City councillors are planning less graffiti on fences and more grime on Queen St.
Citizens & Ratepayer councillors are hailing a $200,000 funding boost to catch and prosecute graffiti vandals but are silent about axing a multi-million-dollar cleaning contract for the gleaming new Queen St and 38 other centres.
Community Services committee chairman Paul Goldsmith said the extra $200,000 would be spent on investigative and surveillance operations to target the 10 worst graffiti vandals in Auckland City at any one time, and bring them before the courts.
It was a critical part of the battle against graffiti and a boost to the $1.85 million annual budget the council spends on its zero tolerance to graffiti programme.
The extra money will be approved today when councillors sit down to draw up this year's budget, which goes out for public consultation on April 21.
C&R is also expected to axe a new level of footpath cleaning for the $43.5 million upgraded Queen St and 38 other commercial centres.
The new service would have introduced mechanical wet scrubbing of footpaths and removal of chewing gum to a level comparable to the cleanest cities in the world. It would have cost $3.2 million this year, rising to $7 million in the third year.
Council officers told councillors that axing the project would mean Queen St and commercial centres would become increasingly less clean.
But the more environmentally sustainable cleaning service could lead to washing pollutants getting into the stormwater network, they said.
