"[T]he police seemed oddly uninterested in the gang graffiti in the area, but were obsessed with the goats."

Said Ed Butler, "who runs a used-record store that was once an art gallery."

Others said the big white planters were an open invitation. “When I first saw those planters my first thought was, ‘They might as well leave cans of paint with them,’ ” said Eric Francis Coppolino, a local artist, journalist and astrologer. “You knew what was going to happen.”...

Monica Snell, a property manager in Wellington, Fla., said... “Every town has this nonsense going on... The ruling class is a bunch of boneheads.”...

Diane Reeder, founder of a nonprofit soup kitchen, the Queens Gallery, said... it was striking how the goats ended up saying something profound without trying to. “It brought so many people together....”...

The Kingston Times, a local weekly, wrote... “The red goat is a great symbol — simple, striking, edgy, easy to remember and easier to associate with a sense of stubborn defiance... People get paid a lot of money to come up with stuff like this, and here Kingston is getting it for free.”

A graffiti quandary.