One Man’s Crusade to Fight Graffiti in His Community

Too many of us see filth, trash and graffiti in our neighborhoods and simply throw up our hands and whine about the deplorable condition of our community.

Francisco Rivera doesn’t throw up his hands. He gets down on his knees and starts to scrub.

Every weekend for the past three years, this 26-year-old teacher’s aide from Huntington Park has armed himself with a wire brush, some cleaning solutions and a pail to scrub graffiti from his neighborhood sidewalks.

Passersby and neighbors would find him on all fours, diligently scrubbing and assume he was fulfilling a court-ordered community service stint. But in fact Rivera took it upon himself to work all those hours on the dirty pavement. He is just one of those rare people who can’t stand idly by while his neighborhood is sullied by graffiti.

He is not a neat freak, he said as he recently scrubbed scrawlings from the sidewalk on Pacific Boulevard, Huntington Park’s main business corridor.

“I just don’t like walking to the corner store and seeing all of this,” he said.

A chance encounter with the head of the city’s Chamber of Commerce turned his unpaid personal war on graffiti into a part-time job.

Rivera, a thin, soft-spoken young man with long black hair, was scrubbing out graffiti on a city sidewalk a few weeks ago when he was spotted by Dante D’Eramo, manager of the Huntington Park Chamber of Commerce.

D’Eramo questioned Rivera and was dumbfounded to learn that the young man was not a city employee and was not being paid for his work.

“He said he loved his community,” D’Eramo recalled. “He said it upsets him to see the sidewalk defaced.”

D’Eramo was so impressed by Rivera’s dedication to the city that he and the chamber offered him a $600 contract to scrub graffiti from the sidewalks on Pacific Boulevard every weekend for three months.

Rivera accepted the contract because he is trying to save money to attend nursing school. But he added: “I would have kept doing it around my neighborhood. I don’t do it for the money.”

For many, graffiti is a sad fact of life in a big city. It is a problem that has not greatly diminished in Los Angeles County, despite the efforts of dozens of expensive anti-graffiti programs.

Countywide, the 88 incorporated cities and numerous agencies spend about $42 million a year on graffiti removal, officials said. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority spends more than $1 million a month. The Department of Public Works in Los Angeles spends about $2.5 million annually.

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Valerie Hill, manager of Los Angeles County’s graffiti abatement program--a $1-million-a-year operation--said her cleanup crews get up to 700 reports of graffiti a week from residents in the county’s unincorporated areas.

But she said only a handful of people actually shrug off complacency and venture into the streets to wipe out graffiti. Most people are afraid of retribution from taggers and gang members, she said.

“We have a lot of residents who have taken it upon themselves to tell us where the graffiti is,” Hill said. “We don’t have as many people who actually go out and clean it up.”

She said she has heard of Rivera, not by name but by reputation, just as she has heard of a handful of other people who take the war against graffiti into their own hands.

Huntington Park Mayor Rosario Marin praised Rivera: “I think he serves as a great example to all of us. He is a great example of the power of one.”

Rivera, a lifelong resident of Huntington Park, decided to fight graffiti when he saw it on the sidewalk near the house he shares with his mother. He soon made it part of his weekly routine to spend a few hours every weekend scrubbing graffiti.

He has become somewhat of an expert on the texture and quality of various paints and the methods of removing them.

When he started, Rivera used a liquid graffiti remover that he bought at a hardware store. But he said he soon found that liquid degreaser used to clean engines works just as well and for half the cost.

But more important than the chemicals is a strong wire brush, Rivera said. “That can get into the pores of the concrete,” he said.

He has also learned that certain graffiti painted on walls flakes off like chalk when he scrubs it with his wire brush, without any chemicals.

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Vandals have begun to scrawl on sidewalks because, he explained, anti-graffiti programs focus on walls and alleyways. Since state law prohibits minors from buying spray cans, many taggers have started to use paint from a tube, which they squeeze while scrawling their monikers on the concrete.

Such tube paint, he discovered, becomes soft and pliable after a strong rainfall. “You can just use your fingers and get one end and lift it, and it comes off like chewing gum,” Rivera said.

He has not been threatened by taggers or gang members. Mainly, he is questioned by people about how best to remove graffiti--a question he gladly answers, knowing others are interested in taking up his cause.

William Mere, vice president of Wilshire State Bank on Pacific Boulevard, recently met Rivera as the graffiti fighter was scrubbing a sidewalk near the bank.

“I was happy to see a young man devoting his time to something that is not personally beneficial,” Mere said. “I wish there were more people like him.”