NEWPORT BEACH : Task Force Debates Anti-Gang Strategies

At its first meeting Thursday, the city’s gang task force debated various plans for an anti-graffiti ordinance and discussed long-term strategies to curb gang activity on beaches and school campuses.

Acting Police Chief Jim Jacobs and Sgt. Mike McDermott, who heads the gang detail, briefed the five-member panel on the city’s gang-related problems, which consist mainly of gang members from other cities tagging, fighting, or committing other crimes during day trips to Newport Beach. Other members of the task force traded information about neighboring cities’ anti-gang programs.

While police officials believe that there are no gangs based in Newport Beach, city leaders are determined to preempt the growing problem brought in by outsiders.

“I’m real anxious to do something ordinance-wise to give the police more to work with for safety and protection,” Councilwoman Janice A. Debay, a task force member, said at the hourlong luncheon meeting. “I think we need to be fast and we need to be tough.”

Most of the discussion focused on an anti-graffiti ordinance, which the City Council will probably pass in May. Jacobs said he will study other cities’ ordinances and bring a draft to the gang task force at its next meeting Wednesday.

The ordinance will probably prohibit the possession of graffiti tools and limit stores’ ability to display items such as spray paint and felt tip markers in their windows. It will also demand quick cleanup of graffiti on public buildings and private homes and may force the parents of taggers who are caught to pay for the damage.

At the meeting, businessman Fred Hernandez, one of two citizen members of the task force, suggested a fund-raising campaign among local businesses to help pay the costs of graffiti cleanup and recreational programs that could divert teen-agers from street gangs.

Debay passed out recent news articles about flyers detailing after-school and camp programs, as well as community awareness campaigns, in other cities.

The group also considered establishing a 24-hour hot line for reporting graffiti and talked of expanding the committee to include three more residents and a staff member from the city’s Parks, Beaches and Recreation Department.

Judith Franco, the school board member on the panel, suggested changing the group’s name to the Safe Community Task Force, as neighboring Irvine has done. “I think you’re going to find that we’re going to get into so much more than gangs,” she said.

But McDermott disagreed, saying: “I think if they hear we do have a gang task force, it will make them think we’re doing something about it.”