Limits Put on Anti-Graffiti Reward : Vandalism: Palmdale officials decide to exclude some teachers and security guards from eligibility for the money.

In Palmdale, most residents can collect $1,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a graffiti vandal, but some teachers and security guards can no longer receive the award.

The Palmdale City Council voted unanimously last week to tighten city rules regarding who can receive cash under the local anti-graffiti reward program, which has been in place since 1988.

City employees and police officers or sheriff’s deputies--on duty or off--cannot collect the $1,000 reward, the council reaffirmed.

And, reacting to recent reward requests from teachers and security guards, the council added a new restriction. The money now cannot be claimed by “any other person who has a legal duty to take appropriate action upon witnessing or becoming aware of an act of graffiti vandalism.”

“The general intent is that if you have a duty to intervene, then you should--without being motivated by a monetary reward,” said Terry Stubbings, a community relations officer who oversees the anti-graffiti program.

Since the program began, the city has given 32 rewards. The $1,000 sum was shared by more than one witness in some cases. The money is given to people whose actions led to the arrest and conviction of a graffiti vandal or the equivalent of a conviction in juvenile cases.

The change in eligibility provoked no public outcry at Wednesday’s council meeting. But two days later in an interview, Grady Box, a California Teachers Assn. staff member assigned to the Antelope Valley, questioned why the city had put the anti-graffiti rewards outside an on-duty teacher’s reach.

“My first reaction is, why are the teachers different from any other citizen?” he asked. “I wouldn’t know any reason why they shouldn’t be eligible.”

Box acknowledged that teachers working on a school playground or in a courtyard have an obligation to act if they see students defacing the campus. But, he said, their legal duty is not so clear when they see acts of vandalism on private property near the school or when the vandals are not students.

Council members have not defined precisely when teachers or security guards are required to report graffiti vandalism. Stubbings said reward requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

Teachers who spot vandals while off duty and away from their campus would probably be eligible for a reward, she said.

Security guards who catch youngsters defacing a building they are paid to protect probably would not qualify for a reward, Palmdale officials said. But if a guard, while driving home, reported vandals spraying another building, the reward might be approved.

In nearby Lancaster, a security guard who helped stop vandals at a building that he was not paid to protect did receive an anti-graffiti award, said Dennis Davenport, Lancaster’s assistant city manager.

“We wrestled with it and decided we didn’t know how we couldn’t give the reward,” he said.

Davenport said Lancaster’s anti-graffiti reward--a $500 voucher for local goods and services--cannot be given to city employees or peace officers. But no one else is excluded, Davenport said.

Off-duty peace officers are not excluded from Santa Clarita’s anti-graffiti rewards, which range from $250 to $1,000, said Kevin Tonoian, who supervises that program. However, no peace officers have received one as yet, he added.

But Palmdale council members insisted last week that they will not reward peace officers who help capture graffiti vandals while off duty. Council members said off-duty officers should act if they see a crime in progress, even if there is no prospect for a reward.

“I think this is a point of clarity,” Councilman Joe Davies said. “People are forgetting their code of ethics because they are asking for this money.”

Stubbings, who oversees the Palmdale program, confirmed that off-duty Los Angeles Police Department officers living in the Palmdale area have requested, but not received, the anti-graffiti rewards. She declined to identify the officers.

Los Angeles Police Officer Arthur Holmes Jr., a department spokesman, said that when an LAPD officer is off duty, outside his or her jurisdiction and not using Police Department equipment, “there’s nothing in the manual that we know of that would prohibit an officer from accepting a reward for a good deed.”

But Capt. Tony Welch, commander of the Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Station, said his department would not approve of a deputy seeking a reward for reporting vandalism while off duty.

“We require a deputy to take appropriate action if he sees a crime in progress, even if it’s just a phone call, whether he’s on duty or not,” Welch said.

More coverage of the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys appears today on B16.