PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - The city of Portland wasn't too happy with the work it got through Jobdango.
     
The city is suing the online job classifieds company for $5,446, claiming that's what it cost to remove hundreds of chalk advertisements drawn on city streets one night last September.
     
Benjamin Walter, the lawyer representing Portland, said the city wouldn't normally sue people who put chalk to pavement, such as children playing hopscotch, but Jobdango had been warned after a similar advertising stunt in 2005.
     
Jobdango, as well as Joseph Tripi, who is representing the company in the case, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
     
The chalk was removed by Downtown Clean & Safe, a nonprofit organization that has a contract with the city to remove graffiti.
     
Though one might expect the rain to wash the chalk away in this soggy city, the graffiti was applied in September, one of the few months in which Portland enjoys steady sunshine.
     
The cleanup crew spent several hours removing hundreds of chalk advertisements, which were 2 to 4 feet long. They had to be power washed, then scrubbed by hand.
     
"Chalk is not as easy to dispose of as people think," said Marsha Dennis, who directs the city's graffiti abatement department. "While you're waiting for it to rain, it looks messier and messier and messier."
     
She said chalk graffiti and advertising graffiti are both fairly rare, but they do occur. She added that the city spends more than $1 million a year in its effort to remove the various types of graffiti.
     
"There's hardly a block without graffiti of some sort on it, and we're trying to clean it up every single day," Dennis said. "If we did nothing, imagine what the city would look like?"
     
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)