HUNTINGTON BEACH : Seawall Art Project Gets Bad Reviews

A new citizens’ group has accused the city’s seawall graffiti art program of backfiring and causing an upswing in illegal “tagging” of private property.

The group, Community Forum-Huntington Beach, said tougher laws by the City Council to halt the spreading graffiti problem is urgently needed.

Philip Baumfeld, a founder of group, said police evidence suggests that graffiti in the city dramatically increased last year after the City Council approved legalized spray-painting of some of the seawalls at the beaches.

“This graffiti art program may not have been the wisest thing to do,” said Baumfeld, who is a lawyer. “Maybe it’s something the city should rethink.”

But Naida Osline, an art official on the city staff, disputed the charge. “This is a wonderful program,” she said. “Some people are trying to use hysteria and half-truths to attack this art program.” She said there is no evidence to connect the recent increases in graffiti in Huntington Beach to the city’s year-old seawall art program.

Since January, 1992, the city has allowed people to apply for a free permit for seawall painting. The permits allow painters to use concrete seawalls between 11th and Golden West streets for murals. Some of the paint work is graffiti style, prompting some to call the project “graffiti art.”

Osline said that many of the murals are in more traditional art styles and are painted with brushes.

“Yes, there’s an increase in graffiti (in Huntington Beach),” said Osline, “but there’s an increase all over Orange County. Thousands of kids are doing tagging all over the county.”

Since December of last year, the larger cities in Orange County have reported serious increases in graffiti. City and county officials have said that the increase is due to a youthful fad called “tagging” or “hip-hop writing.”

Community Forum-Huntington Beach discussed graffiti during its meeting Tuesday, and the group issued a statement Thursday that criticized the seawall art program. They also said that police reported that the art program encouraged the spread of graffiti.

Detective Michael Mello, the city’s specialist on gangs, said Thursday that he thinks the seawall program has increased the spread of graffiti in the community. “I think the program was well intentioned, but I don’t think you can control it,” Mello said. He also said the city should end the art program.

Linda Daily, a senior analyst with Huntington Beach’s Public Works Department, said Thursday that statistics showed a very large increase in graffiti within the city in 1992. But Daily noted that other cities without art programs are also having huge increases in graffiti. Public works records show that graffiti has escalated from 274 incidents in the 1987-88 fiscal year to 3,222 in fiscal 1991-92. For the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, the city has already recorded 8,636 incidents of graffiti, Daily said.

Community Forum-Huntington Beach was founded in December by a group unhappy with how the new City Council majority filled the vacancy created by the death of council member Jack Kelly. Baumfeld said the new organization now claims about 150 members.