Only people power can save ‘Jesus loves nachos’ in Katherine

The railway bridge slogan is one of the best known landmarks in Katherine but Mayor Fay Miller has declared it is time for it to go.

Still the Mayor is wrong about one thing, perhaps she is wrong about the other – the popular support for the graffiti.

Mayor Miller told ABC Radio this week the graffiti had faded and was now mostly gone.

She is wrong about that.

An inspection this morning showed the graffiti is still very much legible even if parts of it are faded.

Rather than paint over it, perhaps people would rather it had a touch up.

It has been a feature on the Katherine railway bridge for several decades, an adaptation of “Jesus Loves you’ by a local wag.

It has become such a famous, if still mysterious quote, that it has its own Facebook page and TV host Grant Denyer has even tweeted about it.

There are also T-shirts made up with the slogan.

And several people are known to have it tattooed on their bodies.

The NT Government last year told the Katherine Times it was too scared to touch it.

We are seeking another response today.

The Infrastructure, Planning and Logistics Department is actually in charge of the bridge, not Katherine Town Council.

The bridge no longer takes trains but pedestrians and cyclists.

“Jesus loves nachos is not to be touched,” a government spokeswoman told us last year.

“It’s an icon.”

Mayor Miller does not agree.

She was doing her job well, and talking up the future of Katherine in an interview with ABC Radio this week.

She spruiked the council’s long-term plans for Railway Terrace and said those plans included a development on the Ryan Park side of the bridge.

It is hoped a restaurant or outdoor area can take advantage of the bridge’s position on the river.

Mayor Miller said the rusty bridge would need to be re-painted and the graffiti would have to go.

She even suggested perhaps it could be moved, the graffiti that is.

Katherine residents have expressed their support for the graffiti before, now they need to do it again.