Motor City Muckraker Steve Neavling is reporting that the city of Detroit—and the mayor's office in particular—has ordered a crackdown on a new graffiti campaign intended to draw attention to Detroit's growing problem of broken fire hydrants. The campaign, brainchild of local graphic design artist Ben Kramp, has involved deploying large stickers of classic red hydrants all over the Detroit—hydrants with the words "out of service" on them.
According to Kramp, as quoted in Neavling's article, Detroit police came to question him at his Farmington home today, citing the city's new graffiti crackdown. Kramp is selling his stickers on Etsy, had also has a website devoted to spreading word of the city's problem with broken fire hydrants. Proceeds from the Etsy store will go to area firefighters.
Michigan Public Radio reports that the city has refused a Freedom of Information act request filed by Neavling to see just how bad the problem really is, citing danger from arsonists if they knew the location of broken hydrants. NPR also reports that Neavling's survey of 15% of the city's 30,000 hydrants found that 279 of 4500 hydrants were broken. No word on whether Kramp will face charges, but perhaps the city could find a better way of spending money than on arresting him. For example, they might fix a few of our fire hydrants.
·Mayor Duggan's graffiti crackdown targets fundraiser for firefighters [Motor City Muckraker]
·Detroit hydrants [Etsy]
·Detroit Hydrants [Detroit Hydrants]
·Broken fire hydrants contribute to more Detroit buildings burnings [Michigan Public Radio]
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