Officials Remove It as Fast as Gangs Paint It : Drawing Up Sides: The Graffiti Wars

Graffiti has been described as the newspaper of the streets, a way for some--especially youth gangs--to communicate.

The gangs usually paint the graffiti under the cover of darkness. During the day, city crews remove it.

“If someone puts it up 47 times, we take it down 47 times,” said Gary Sloan, city manager of La Mirada.

This scenario is played out repeatedly throughout the Southeast area.

Most cities try to remove the graffiti within 24 to 48 hours. Although it is difficult to catch graffiti artists in the act, city officials say it is important to destroy their work quickly and often.

“If we jump on it right away, we deny the gangs from using the walls to communicate. They become frustrated and move on somewhere else,” said Sal Navarro, property maintenance officer for the City of Commerce.

No One Knows Who Is Winning

By the end of the fiscal year in June, 25 Southeast cities could spend a combined $1.4 million on eliminating graffiti.

Are the cities winning the battle against graffiti? Some say it is on the rise, while others say they see a decrease. Still others say their success in controlling graffiti varies.

“If the weather is nice, the graffiti writers come out. During bad weather, we have less graffiti,” said Jim Finerd, mechanical superintendent of public works in Huntington Park.

“We are just about able to cope with it now,” said Hobart Bowen, Compton’s director of general services.

Bowen points to his graffiti budget, which has steadily declined the last three years from $90,000, to $71,000 to $50,000.

It has gone down because there is less graffiti, Bowen said. Other city beautification programs, coupled with the graffiti removal program, are succeeding in changing Compton’s image as a graffiti-scarred city, Bowen said.

The majority of the cities use federal Housing and Urban Development money to fund their removal projects while a few set aside money from the city’s general budget. Others combine both federal and general funds for aggressive removal programs.

La Habra Heights is the only city in the Southeast area without a formally structured program. However, the city has $2,500 earmarked for any graffiti emergency, said Noelia Chapa, assistant to the city manager.

“If we get a call--we might not get more than one or two a year--we send someone out to clean it up right away,” Chapa said. La Habra Heights, with a population of 5,358 and no downtown in a semi-rural area, has had no graffiti calls this year.

Warfare against graffiti can be as innovative and as intricate as the etchings left by the gangs. In Long Beach, for example, city crews are armed with cameras to photograph the graffiti for law enforcement officers who place importance in gang scribblings.

“It gives us information,” said Detective Norm Sorenson, Long Beach police gang detail investigator. “It can identify gang territory, which gangs are fighting over what turf and if someone is bragging about committing a crime, a murder, they might put it on a wall.”

Sorenson interjected a word of caution. “Graffiti is a low-grade misdemeanor when compared to the horrendous crimes we must deal with. We can only devote so much time and manpower to it.”

Gangs Have 5,000 Members

There are about 30 gangs in Long Beach with an estimated total membership of about 5,000, Sorenson said. Possibly seven of these are actively involved in serious crimes ranging from drive-by shootings to narcotic dealings, he said. Most of the gangs are involved in graffiti-writing, especially the younger members, “who want to become known,” Sorenson said.

Graffiti is a misdemeanor in most cases. The maximum penalty for property damage more than $1,000 but less than $5,000 is a $5,000 fine and one year in County Jail. Damage more than $5,000 is considered a felony and can result in a $10,000 fine and a year in state prison.

Not surprisingly, Long Beach, with the largest population among Southeast cities of more than 400,000, has the biggest graffiti budget. Spread among several departments, the combined total exceeds $300,000 annually, said Phyllis Moore, an officer in the neighborhood improvement division.

Most of the money, $283,000, is in the neighborhood improvement budget. Some of the money is used for a mural program, which started in 1986, as a preventive measure against graffiti, Moore said. The city hires artists to create murals along fences and walls in various neighborhoods with the help of youths from the neighborhood schools, Moore said.

Gangs Respect Murals

“The mural program tries to provide incentive for people not to mark up buildings. Youths are less inclined to graffiti murals they have helped create,” Moore said.

“The gangs seem to respect the art. We have very little trouble with graffiti on the murals,” Moore said. Last year, an estimated $20,000 was spent on the mural program. This year, about $30,000 or $35,000 is expected to be spent.

Although Long Beach does not offer a reward for those who turn in graffiti writers, six other cities do pay those whose information leads to the arrest and conviction of vandals.

The most recent reward program--and the biggest in the Southeast area--was established Wednesday by the Cerritos City Council, which authorized a reward of up to $5,000.

“The council is concerned because they’ve gotten a lot of complaints (about graffiti),” said Michele Ogle, Cerritos public information coordinator. The council has asked the administrative staff to determine whether the city has a gang problem and how serious it might be, Ogle said.

Reward Never Claimed

La Mirada is offering $1,000. The reward was posted about five years ago but has never been given to anyone. About three months ago the city mentioned it in a newsletter as a reminder to the residents that it is available, City Manger Sloan said.

Sloan said La Mirada does not have a big gang problem, and not all the graffiti is gang-related.

“Our graffiti is more philosophical. We get graffiti like ‘Stop Killing Yourself, Stop Eating Red Meat,’ ” he said.

Even when people are aware of rewards, few come forward because they do not want to be involved and there is always the fear of gang retaliation, some city officials said.

“People just don’t want the publicity. You can’t blame them,” said Larry Cheeves, acting public works director for Norwalk. Norwalk’s standing $250 reward also has never been awarded.

“We would love to give it to someone. It would let them (gangs) know that people are not going to roll over,” Cheeves said.

Bell Gardens, which offers a $250 reward, has awarded the prize four times, once in 1983, once in 1984 and twice in 1985.

How Much Help Is Unknown

Steve Steinbrecher, community service director, speculates that the rewards “help, but how much I don’t know. I believe people who get involved would do so even if a reward was not offered.”

The $300 reward offered by South Gate was given 13 times when it first started in 1984-85, four times in 1985-86, five last year and none so far this year, according to Kevin White, city administrative analyst.

While rewards have declined in South Gate, White said telephone calls to the city to report graffiti have increased significantly. In 1985-86, there were 356 calls, compared to 490 in 1986-87. So far this year, there have been 728 calls.

“I think the calls have increased because people have an increased awareness of our program, but that’s secondary. There is more graffiti out there,” said John Elwell, field operations manager for public works.

ANTI-GRAFFITI EFFORTS

*24-hr Est. Yearly City Hotline Reward Spending ARTESIA none $ 7,500 BELL 581-HELP none 27,000 BELLFLOWER none 10,000 BELL GARDENS 927-8306 $250 120,000 CERRITOS none 8,000 COMMERCE none 40,000 COMPTON none 50,000 CUDAHY none 7,000 DOWNEY 923-4484 none 15,000 HAWAIIAN GARDENS none 15,000 HUNTINGTON PARK $500 90,000 LA HABRA HEIGHTS No formal program 2,500 LAKEWOOD none 20,000 LA MIRADA $1,000 6,500 LONG BEACH 590-6367 none 300,000 LYNWOOD 603-0360 none 147,000 MAYWOOD none 5,500 MONTEBELLO none 50,000 NORWALK $250 140,000 PARAMOUNT none 50,000 PICO RIVERA none 107,000 SANTA FE SPRINGS none 35,000 SIGNAL HILL none 5,000 SOUTH GATE 569-1558 $300 135,000 WHITTIER none 80,000

*Where there is no hot line, residents can call the City Hall during regular working hours.

Source: Southeast / Long Beach city officials