For the 15th time in 15 days, the Grand Haven pier has again been closed because of people carving their initials in the fresh cement and writing messages in sidewalk chalk on the new pier.

It all started with Jon and Ali’s creative love expression (see image) in June but has recently expanded to reports that mayoral candidates Josh Brugger and Geri McCaleb took advantage of the wet concrete to make their intials known to all pier travelers.   As far as we know, neither candidate nor their election committees have offered any type of comment.

The FEC has not commented about if they plan to file a complaint against the candidates since they did not include any disclaimer about the who paid for their finger art in promotion of their respective candidacies.

 

Unfortunately, the mischief has moved from engraving wet concrete to spray paint and chalk graffiti.  It has gotten worse over the past couple of weeks as seen by this photo of the fog house at the end of the pier.  This picture taken from one of our vessels seems to indicate the damage may be caused by someone named Jack who loves the artist Pink (or maybe the color pink) and was born in 1973 or graduated in 1973.

Two of our Grand Haven Whale Watching interns wrote Haikus about the destruction.

Here they are for your enjoyment:

by Capt. Intern:
Rainy summertime
suddenly graffeti paint
despite the lighthouse

 

by First Mate Intern:
Sunshiny lakeshore
A lightweight, big concrete mess
after the lighthouse

In this recently leaked body-cam video of one of the suspected finger art artists seemed to taunt state park conservation officers guarding the park perimeter near Harbor Drive.

In another leaked video it was revealed that not all police officers are well versed in cement surveillance.