Writing Is on Wall--Graffiti Rises

The city of Los Angeles removed or covered about 20 million square feet of graffiti in the 10-month period ending Oct. 31, a 24% increase over cleanup efforts for the same period last year, city officials said Wednesday.

The increase may be partly due to efforts to spruce up the city before last summer’s Democratic National Convention, said Paul Racs, assistant director of Operation Clean Sweep, which oversees the city’s graffiti removal efforts.

In August, the month of the convention, the city cleaned up 75% more graffiti than it had in August 1999, records show.

Program director Delphia Jones said she believes the increase reflects a rise in graffiti incidents, but she said the city keeps no records of incidents or the amount of walls, signs and other structures defaced by vandals.

Even so, others agree the problem has gotten worse. In October, the Los Angeles Police Department’s Community Tagger Task Force in the San Fernando Valley reactivated a 50-member volunteer surveillance team to help monitor graffiti, said Officer Ron Stilz, the task force leader.

Ivor Alan-Lee, a reserve police officer with the task force, said his group is seeing more signs of tagging crews.

“It’s gotten so big that it’s harder to keep up and wash off,” he said.

And Northridge resident Candido Marez, who helps with anti-graffiti efforts through a church group, said he and other volunteers are “swamped” with work.

“It’s out of control,” he said.

Operation Clean Sweep, a division of the city’s Public Works Department, began in 1987 with a budget of $500,000. It currently has an annual budget of $2.7 million.

The agency collects removal figures monthly from 16 abatement programs throughout the city.

At the urging of Councilman Hal Bernson, the City Council voted Tuesday to call for state legislation that would require people convicted of a second graffiti offense to serve either mandatory jail or community service terms.

Currently, most vandals are charged with a misdemeanor and get community service if convicted.