The taxpayer is already paying for the weekend vandalism at Masich Place Stadium, and it is costing more than cash.
On Monday afternoon, City of Prince George municipal worker Dean Ward was spraying industrial strength cleaner on the scrawled lettering, then rubbing hard with a towel to take the most offensive markings off. It was the second session the city had invested that day, the first to remove openly racist and anti-Semitic content.
"If I didn't have to do this I'd be driving plow truck and sanding the roads," Ward said, showing another layer of victimization. People's snow removal needs were going unmet due to this vandalization.
There is an active investigation into who sprayed so much graffiti on the walls of the stadium, according to RCMP.
"We gathered evidence at the scene, looked at the tracks, looked for finger prints, we're following up with secondary schools because some of the writing made reference to that, and we are asking the public for any information," said Prince George RCMP spokesman Cpl. Craig Douglass.
"They have erased or smudged out some of the more offensive damage, but they have to wait for spring weather to fully repaint it, or the paint just won't work," said Scott Hunyadi, the facilities scheduling co-ordinator with the City of Prince George.
"It is a shame, it's an embarrassment," he said. "Security has been an issue already here, we have had to deal a lot with this sort of vandalism in smaller incidents. We did make some changes leading into winter and we had more measures planned, but now I think that process will speed up."
It might mean having to lock the facility up at night, a measure that has never been needed before, and might cause inconvenience to summertime walkers who wish to use the track early in the morning.
Over at the RCMP detachment, Douglass would not confirm or deny that the images were being checked by anti-gang analysts or hate-crime analysts but did acknowledge that such resources were available to them, and the investigation was far from being shrugged off by police.
"[Masich Place Stadium] is obviously a local landmark and as a local community member I take pride in that place. I hate to see this," he said.
"We have a lot of photographs and we are investigating. It doesn't appear on the surface to be gang related, but the investigators will determine that. Although disturbing by itself, some of the content of the graffiti was equally disturbing. Investigators are asking for the public's help in locating the person or persons responsible for this disgraceful attack on this well used community facility."
The city had just spent about $1,000 to replace a steel door at the stadium, protecting the score clock room. That door did its job to keep these vandals out, but was destroyed by the beating it received.
There is still no cost estimate for the amount of paint that might be needed, but most of the stadium's outer walls will have to be recoloured, so extensive was the graffiti.
Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Prince George RCMP detachment at 250-561-3300 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800 222-TIPS.
