SALINAS - A Salinas councilmember is targeting graffiti in neighborhood parks following concerns from parents.
"I see it everywhere, the slides," said Alexandria Zapata, one concerned parent. "It's pretty awful, disgusting, dirty words."
Zapata spends a lot of time with her daughter at Laurelwood Park and is concerned about what her toddler sees on the playground.
"Graffiti here in the parks are pretty gross," she said. "You have a child going down the slide and all of a sudden they're stopping and looking."
Councilmember Gloria De La Rosa said graffiti continues to be a problem throughout the city, including Laurel Heights Park.
It's a big item on the councilmember's agenda.
"It's important because the neighbors have complained and I have to take responsibility on that to make it safe and beautify it," she said.
De La Rosa said she's using about $2,000 of grant money in her district to give the park a makeover because she knows how important it is to people.
"We're going to remove the graffiti and try to uniform the paint, the entrance, and try to work with the city to replace the wood chips to rubberize it to make it even safer," she said.
She hopes to make the clean-up a community event so the graffiti doesn't come back.
"We want the whole community to get involved with this effort to beautify our city and remove that graffiti," she said.
And to make parents, like Zapata, feel more comfortable about bringing their kids to the park.
De La Rosa anticipates work on the park to start in April.
