Ventura to Consider Extra $30,000 for Graffiti Cleanup : Vandalism: Program’s $55,000 budget is drained. City is also drafting a law to ban spray paint and marker sales to youths.

The Ventura City Council on Monday will consider spending an additional $30,000 to remove graffiti because increased vandalism has drained the $55,000 set aside to finance the program this fiscal year, city officials said.

Since November, the number of calls to the city’s 24-hour graffiti hot line, which previously averaged about five calls a day, has shot up to an average of 25 a day, said Mike Solomon, who heads the program.

“If we weren’t doing this program, we would look like L.A.,” Solomon said. Police say more than 100 tagging crews operate in Ventura.

Several times a week, two workers under contract to the city paint over the graffiti.

“We guarantee removal in 24 to 48 hours, but we don’t work weekends,” Solomon said.

Police and city staff are also drafting a proposed anti-graffiti ordinance that the City Council is expected to consider in a few weeks. The ordinance would prohibit the sale of spray paint and markers to juveniles.

The graffiti removal program began in 1989, Solomon said. This is the first time funding has come up short, he said.

City officials and police noticed a drastic increase in vandalism about November, said Ventura Police Sgt. Carl Handy.

Most of the increased graffiti has been “tagging graffiti,” which is not gang-related, Handy said. Gangs use graffiti to establish a territory, he said.

According to Handy, taggers come from all different backgrounds and classes and sometimes work alone.

“Taggers are out there for the sole purpose of recognition,” he said. “They tag anything in sight, and tagging is an expensive sport to clean up.”

Handy said police support quick eradication because “any graffiti creates the idea of gang culture.”

In Los Angeles, some tagging crews have taken on gang characteristics and have become violent, Handy said. “They’re shooting people,” he said.

Every city in Ventura County has some type of graffiti removal program. Some cities have laws that prohibit the sale of some kinds of paint and markers to juveniles.

Port Hueneme, which spends about $15,000 annually on anti-graffiti programs, passed an ordinance about two months ago that enables the city to remove graffiti from homes and businesses when the property owner cannot keep up with the problem or when the owner is out of town. Property owners must sign an agreement in advance giving the city permission to paint on their property.

Thousand Oaks has a law that allows the city to recover the costs of cleaning up graffiti from a person convicted of vandalizing public property.

Santa Paula spends only $3,000 a year on its programs, but relies heavily on volunteers.

Oxnard spends about half a million dollars annually and has many volunteers who combat vandalism. The city offers rewards of up to $1,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of vandals.

Ventura’s graffiti removal crew, armed with paint rollers and five-gallon cans of paint, drives a white pickup truck to locations where graffiti markings have been reported. Some residents also paint over vandalism on their own.

“We’ve done this wall about a dozen times,” said a painter, who asked not to be identified for fear of being threatened. “I knew exactly what color to grab.”

The painting crew has about a dozen colors to select from, the painter said.

Bob Fraser, who supervises the cleanup crew, said his first priority is to cover the most visible graffiti.

Highly visible walls, fences and buildings on major streets receive the quickest attention, Fraser said.

On Thursday, the cleanup crew wiped out two elaborate graffiti murals on the sides of a business in downtown Ventura, only a block from City Hall.

“I was so impressed,” said Bonnie Milhalic, who owns a crafts store on Main Street. “It’s a brand new building--my heart was broken. They even matched the paint.”

In about 90 minutes, the cleanup crew had obliterated what had probably taken days for the vandals to do, Fraser said.

“We get kids out there who say to us, ‘Why do you bother? We’re just going to put it back on again,’ ” Fraser said. “I tell the kids, ‘I got more paint than you.’ ”

FYI

Ventura residents can report graffiti by calling the city’s 24-hour hot line at 654-7805. Callers should leave a message on the answering machine about where the graffiti markings are located. Cleanup crews will paint over the vandalism in 24 to 48 hours.