June 10, 2007
by Adam Kimmerly

Paint on almost every boulder - May 2007

Within the last few months, Santee taggers have repeatedly tagged almost every boulder that is visible from Mast Blvd. The ACSD purchased some graffiti removal supplies and removed paint from a few boulders but a lot of work remained. More graffiti remover was to be ordered, and an ACSD cleanup was in the works.

Then the paint was gone! Apparently someone got tired of seeing it and someone sandblasted all of the paint from the boulders that faced the road. We presume it was either the City of Santee or San Diego, but haven't yet figured out who did all the work. Whoever it was, bravo!

So for now, the santee cleanup plans are on hold until the need truly arises. When it does, we'll be sure to let you all know.

We don't expect the tagging to stop completely, however, we'll be doing our best to stay on top of any new paint and remove it as soon as possible and as best we can. Hopefully quick removal will minimize the likelyhood of "tagging wars" starting as they did in the past months.

If you encounter any new tagging in Santee (or at any of our local crags), notify us via E-mail and we'll try to take care of it as soon as possible. Also, if you catch any taggers in the act, call the Santee Sheriff at (858) 565-5200 for non-emergency issues. They will respond if they are not occupied with more urgent issues. If you have a camera with a telephoto lens, get some pictures of the taggers and make sure to pass them on to the Sheriff.

The good news is that we have some great, biodegradable graffiti remover that seems to work fairly well. We should be getting more of it soon. If you know of crags that could use some graffiti removal don't hesitate to let us know.