Oxnard May Alter Graffiti Removal Plan : Blight: Council will consider shifting more cleanup duties to a contractor or privatizing altogether. Some say current program is successful and doesn’t need changing.

Graffiti had reached such epidemic proportions in Oxnard by 1991 that almost every alley in the city was smeared with spray paint, according to a city report, and city leaders opted for a blitzkrieg plan to eradicate the unsightly etchings.

It seems to be working: Graffiti has been on the decline in Oxnard for 18 months, city officials said.

Nevertheless, the Oxnard City Council today will consider two alternative plans to remove graffiti blight: shifting more of the city’s responsibilities to a contractor, and privatizing altogether.

The current programs involve Neighborhood Watch groups, police investigators and city workers and contractors who paint over the inscriptions almost as soon as they go up, said Manny Vega, who is in charge of Oxnard’s anti-graffiti effort.

“Removing the graffiti as soon as it is painted has really helped,” Vega said. “That way, the tagger doesn’t get a chance to brag about his pseudo artwork.”

Most of the city’s program, including a hot line that residents can call to report graffiti, would remain, officials said.

But Councilman Tom Holden said the city needs to determine if contracting for all services would be cheaper and more effective.

“It’s not about privatizing, it’s about maximizing our dollars,” Holden said. “The bottom line is important, but we have to continue fighting this, because we’re making some headway.”

Because the number of scribblings is going down dramatically, the fee paid to a contractor to paint them over is expected to decline by $86,000 this year to $100,000.

Consequently, city officials expect to spend a total of $337,000 this budget year--almost $100,000 less than last year’s $436,000--fighting graffiti.

Vega said he favors entertaining offers from contractors to determine if they could remove graffiti more cheaply and would encourage the City Council to hire the lowest bidders if they could do the job well.

But he warned that the city may lose something along with the savings it would gain.

“If we contract everything, we kind of lose control, which is something you don’t want to do,” Vega said. “Our objection to that is that in the past 18 months we have made a lot of progress, and we would hate to lose ground.”

Eleanor Branthoover, chairwoman of Oxnard’s Inter-Neighborhood Council Committee and a crusader against graffiti, said the city should leave the current program alone.

“I don’t know why the city would want to change something that is doing so well,” Branthoover said. “You’ve got volunteers out there who are diligently painting over graffiti because they think the city can’t afford to do it, and I suspect that they would stop doing that if they knew some private firm could do it.”

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Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez said he has yet to make up his mind on what would be best for the city but that he is pleased with the current plan.

“Considering the magnitude of the problem we had, I think we have done well,” Lopez said. “I don’t know if the other alternatives will help us.”

Regardless of what option the City Council chooses, Vega said, Oxnard should update its graffiti removal contracts so the city is charged by the square foot instead of by the hour, and require companies to remove all etchings immediately. The city’s current contractor, Shumate Sandblasting Co., is only required to remove racist or profane graffiti right away.

In addition to the city’s efforts to quickly paint over tags, Vega attributes the drop in graffiti to the work of the neighborhood councils and tougher sentencing laws--such as the one that recently put Oxnard’s most notorious graffiti vandal behind bars for eight years.

Vega said the 15-year-old tagger, who toyed with Neighborhood Watch leaders throughout Oxnard, was responsible for much of the graffiti in the city.