Residents Ready to Fight Over Graffiti : Culture: City agency proposes recognizing wall-marking as an art form. But homeowners say it is vandalism.

Representatives from several San Fernando Valley homeowner groups and anti-graffiti organizations met Saturday in Sylmar to map out strategy to oppose a proposal to recognize graffiti as an art form in the city of Los Angeles.

“This is not an art issue,” said Gerald Silver, president of the Homeowners of Encino. “This is a vandalism issue.”

The proposal by the city’s Cultural Affairs Department was drafted after a September conference co-sponsored by the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities. About 60 individuals “representing the diverse viewpoints of street art and graffiti vandalism” participated in the event, according to a report prepared by Adolfo V. Nodal, Cultural Affairs Department general manager.

Nodal’s department also has proposed, among other things, that street art centers be established where graffiti artists can paint legally without fear of arrest, that developer fees be used to commission street art murals, and that the department hire a staff member who would “counsel youth on street art issues.”

But what upsets homeowners and others most about the proposal, expected to be presented to the Cultural Affairs Commission in January, is Nodal’s recommendation that the city recognize street art as a valid form of cultural expression.

“Graffiti is vandalism and those who embrace it are urban terrorists,” said Margaret Whittington of the Sylmar Neighborhood Watch Network.

Calling graffiti environmental blight, those attending Saturday’s meeting said Nodal’s proposal will harm their efforts to eradicate graffiti and will encourage more youths to spray-paint on walls.

“We are appalled,” said Hannah Dyke of the Sylmar Graffiti Busters, which is circulating petitions against the proposal. “Legalizing graffiti will just lead to more crime.”

Silver said Encino residents will not allow graffiti in their neighborhood under any guise.

“We don’t have graffiti in Encino,” he said. “We won’t tolerate it.”

He also urged homeowners to write letters to Nodal and their elected officials and to support a proposed statewide ballot initiative that would place a tax of $1 on each can of spray-paint sold.

“We’re going to have to organize citywide to defeat this,” he said. “But this is a very winnable fight.”

Nodal was unavailable for comment Saturday, but in a September opinion piece he wrote for The Times, he said that he hopes to persuade homeowners and graffiti-suppression organizations to work with his department.

“For us, the possible artistic value of some graffiti is a secondary issue,” he said. “This most important question is how to address the hopes, aspirations, needs and guaranteed freedom of expression of the many preteen and teen-age kids of all ethnic backgrounds who consider themselves street artists. . . .”

And in an August interview, he said: “We can’t hit all of the artists over the head and put them in jail. It won’t work. We can’t just decree graffiti out of existence.”

Nodal said that other elements in the city “think that they’re out there trying to abate graffiti and we’re trying to glorify it. In reality, all of us want to reduce vandalism and visual blight.”

Few agreed with Nodal’s argument Saturday.

“We’re totally against this proposal,” said Robert Valdez of Operation Clean Sweep, a city-sponsored graffiti cleanup program.

About 20 people representing organizations in several San Fernando Valley communities, including Lake View Terrace, San Fernando, Woodland Hills, Sylmar, Glendale and Tarzana, attended the meeting. Also present were leaders of the National Graffiti Network and other anti-graffiti organizations.

Dyke said she sent 1,400 meeting invitations to individuals throughout the city.

“I’m disappointed at the turnout,” she said. “People will sign petitions, but often when they see someone else is fighting the battle, they don’t show up in person.”