The Cathedral Catholic High School Mission and Ministry Department is organizing a paint-out, a commonly used technique to abate graffiti by painting over vandalized property, for Monday after school to mitigate offensive language and pictures in a tunnel near the junior parking lot that connects the Del Mar campus to a popular open-space preserve.

“The graffiti is very inappropriate and needs to be cleaned up,” Dean of Mission and Ministry Ms. Alison Purpera said.

The Mission and Ministry Department encourages students and faculty to participate in this important campus beautification event and service opportunity.

The City of San Diego Transportation and Storm Water Street Division will supply five-gallon water based paint buckets and materials, including paint rollers, long handles, and empty buckets for the paint-out.

“The city appreciates the community painting over graffiti themselves because our division tries to extend our hands to abate graffiti as much as we can, but we are still limited in time and resources,” Mr. Rodney Williams, a supervisor in the street division, said.

The tunnel is a public right-of-way connecting the school to Gonzalez Canyon, a 900- square-mile open space featuring hiking, biking, and equestrian trails. The graffiti  tunnel depicts explicit images and pictures that exhibit inappropriate references to drugs, satanic symbols, and reproductive organs.

According to Mr. Steven Hadley, the San Diego community outreach director for District One Councilwoman Mrs. Barbara Bry, the graffiti attacks specific communities, thus making anyone walking through the tunnel feel offended or unwanted by the Del Mar community.

The tunnel came under scrutiny after a February El Cid article exposing the vandalism attracted the attention of the CCHS administration and the city of San Diego.

After the article was published on Feb. 2, CCHS Principal Mr. Kevin Calkins, City of San Diego Senior Public Art Manager Mrs. Christine Jones, El Cid staff writer Alexander Nichols, and Mr. Hadley discussed options to remove the graffiti. The meeting resulted in all parties agreeing to follow through with a paint-out.

According to Mrs. Jones, a paint-out is the best option for the specific location because it would involve bringing the community together while abating the graffiti for some time.

At the meeting, the school and community leaders also discussed painting over the graffiti with a mural, but obstacles were in the way, including mandating that the school enter into a three to five-year agreement to maintain the tunnel and to provide a professional artist.

Since the process would take a year before actually starting the painting and the graffiti problem needed to be taken care of expeditiously, all parties agreed to adopt the paint out solution. 

Mr. Calkins agreed to the paint-out because it would “be a good starting point” to abate the graffiti immediately.