Simi Valley Begins to Mount Anti-Graffiti Effort : City Council: More than a dozen tactics are endorsed but will require final approval.

Simi Valley leaders are gearing up for a major crackdown on graffiti that will likely involve expanded cleanup efforts, tougher penalties for spray-can vandals and rewards for those who identify them.

City Council members on Monday night endorsed more than a dozen tactics aimed at curtailing Simi Valley’s rising graffiti problems, blamed largely on juvenile taggers and gang members. Police say more than 5,500 graffiti incidents have been reported since 1990.

City staff members are expected to return in the coming weeks with stricter anti-graffiti laws and new programs that would enlist volunteers from the community to paint over graffiti and set up neighborhood “graffiti watch” groups. The council must give final approval before the measures are implemented.

Police Chief Lindsey P. Miller praised the proposals Tuesday, saying his officers need more community help and tougher penalties to control graffiti.

“It’s the most annoying (crime) right now, with regard to the number of incidents,” Miller said. “It creates a great deal of annoyance for citizens who take pride in the community.”

One goal will be the prompt removal of graffiti.

“We feel it should come down as quickly as possible,” Miller said. “It prevents an escalation of potential violence (among gangs and taggers), and it’s a blight on the community.”

Among the proposals endorsed by the council are new laws that would restrict the sale of spray paint, markers and other graffiti tools to minors and require merchants to keep such materials in locked display cases.

Other proposals would make parents financially responsible for graffiti damage caused by their children and require developers to paint public walls with materials that make it easier to remove graffiti.

The council also backed the idea of a neighborhood “graffiti watch” program to help police identify and arrest vandals. The council also favors the idea of equipping volunteers with paint and rollers to help cover graffiti.

City leaders also support the concept of rewards for tipsters who help police arrest and convict vandals, but have yet to decide on the size of awards.

To keep pace with the rising number of incidents, city staff members urged the council to spend $102,000 to hire and equip two new full-time workers who would help locate, photograph and clean up graffiti.

But City Council members balked at that proposal Monday night, saying they want to find out whether it would be cheaper to hire a private contractor to help with the graffiti cleanup.

“The program’s important, and we want to put money into the program,” Mayor Greg Stratton said Tuesday. “But whether we want to add more staff is a second question.”

Councilwoman Judy Mikels said she also was reluctant to add two more full-time workers to the city’s payroll.

“I know they’re saying we’re backlogged in graffiti removal,” she said. “But if we hired those people, you know what happens. They’re there, and it’s hard to delete the jobs.”

Mikels said that if tough new penalties and volunteer cleanup efforts reduce graffiti in the city, the new city workers may not be needed. “We’re not in a position where we can have extraneous people on board,” she said.

City staff members will research the cost and effectiveness of using private crews to paint over graffiti and return to the council with a report in three or four weeks, said Laura Herron, deputy city manager.

As part of this study, Simi Valley staff members will contact Oxnard and Ventura, which use private contractors to clean up graffiti, Herron said.

“We’ll see how it might translate here, and whether the system we have already would be more cost-effective,” she said.

Simi Valley now has one full-time graffiti coordinator who fields complaints, photographs the vandalism, makes a report to police and arranges the cleanup. A city maintenance crew that was originally assigned to unclog storm drains and fix potholes now spends 60% of its time painting over graffiti, Herron said.