Pilot Butte tagged with unwelcoming message

One of Bend’s most prominent landmarks has been vandalized. More than a million people visit Pilot Butte each year, but some of them were greeted with an unwelcome sight Monday morning.

The usual scenery was tagged and tarnished.

“I was shocked,” said Bend resident Kathryn Lippert. “I’ve never seen any graffiti up here before. It was like driving by a big train in a big city or something.”

The biggest piece of vandalism, a sprawling “Get out of our town,” was painted right on the summit viewpoint and seemed to be aimed at tourists or recent transplants.

“It’s kind of ironic, because we were just saying how friendly everyone is here in Bend, and that’s kind of opposite of what we would expect,” Jazzy Ratcliff said.

Audrey Fonseca said., “They’re threatening, almost. It feels like they’re just almost trying to provoke something.”

The walls, walkways and bathroom were all tagged.

“They just had no respect, whoever did it,” said Hayley Moss. “They had no respect for all the people that wanted to come up here and enjoy it.”

State park rangers and people who live in the area told NewsChannel 21 this is the worst graffiti they’ve seen on the butte.

Lippert said she visits four times a week and now has to explain the markings to her 4-year-old

“She was kind of looking around. I just said, ‘Some people don’t really care about property the way you and I do. Sorry, they didn’t draw in the lines like they were supposed to,” she said.

But visitors weren’t letting the markings take away from their experience of the 360-degree view, or their visit to Bend.

“It doesn’t change anything for us,” Ratcliff said. “We still love it here, and we think the people are awesome, and we’ll continue to come back.”

More information about how to get involved in the cleanup can be found here:

http://oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=getinvolved.dsp_volunteer

Our new KTVZ.COM Poll asks: Do you think graffiti/vandalism in public places should be a high police priority> Find it halfway down the right side of our home page.