Sunny skies greeted community volunteers who gave up part of their Saturday to clean up the graffiti in downtown Marysville on April 14 as part of the city's Graffiti Paint-Out.

The event was planned as a stand against community vandalism. Volunteers gathered in areas near downtown State Street to paint and spray over vandalized property and pick up trash.

This is the second year of the Paint-Out, and volunteers like Mike Rounds and son Christian were happy with last year's results so they returned again this year.

Mike and Christian helped paint the entirety of a fence that had been tagged last year, and they were pleased that when driving past it now, it's still in good condition.

"We got to make sure no one comes back to re-mark it," said Christian.

Mayor Jon Nehring noted that the city focuses on education and enforcement to help prevent graffiti, but unfortunately that has not been enough.

"The Paint-Out is our community's message to graffiti vandals and taggers that we have zero tolerance for graffiti," Nehring said.

As volunteers gathered at Cedarcrest Middle School for the community event, the mayor said that improving the appearance of the downtown area has been a priority for quite some time. "We've tried some methods before, but this year we've upped the ante in downtown revitalization," he said.

Nehring said that volunteers for this effort are important because the graffiti problem will not be conquered without true community backing.

Graffiti Paint-Out is part of the city's Clean Sweep week, which features many free events to help improve the community and is running through April 21.

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