Rancho Cucamonga Steps up Removal of Graffiti

Rancho program steps up tracking, removal of graffiti
By Wendy Leung, Staff Writer
Article Created: 02/01/2008
RANCHO CUCAMONGA - Things change quickly in this maturing city.
Businesses come, then fold.
Politicians are elected, then ousted.
But one thing is constant - graffiti.
Mark Perry, coordinator for the city's graffiti-eradication program, has been tracking the works of pesky taggers for 12 years.
"It never quits," he said.
Rancho Cucamonga is known more for grapes than graffiti, and city leaders want to keep it that way.
Last year, the City Council decided to devote an extra $300,000 to the program, hiring two additional employees and subscribing to a database that helps authorities better track and prosecute taggers.
"The idea is to get it off as quickly as possible," City Manager Jack Lam said. "It becomes a big deterrent."
The addition of two full-time workers allow the graffiti- removal crews to work seven days a week.
They're usually kept quite busy.
Maintenance workers Kris Martinez and Edward Rue had their hands full one recent morning, painting over graffiti spray- painted on an electrical tower on Foothill Boulevard.
Within an hour, Martinez and Rue went to several corners of the city that were hit by taggers.
They sandblasted a message off a curb in Etiwanda and wiped ink markings from stop signs and utility boxes.
The crews typically clean about 20 spots a day.
The city puts a $430 price tag on cleaning up each instance of graffiti,
making this type of vandalism a felony.
"It takes 10 seconds for someone to tag, and 10 minutes for us to clean it up," Perry said.
But recently, it took a crew two hours to paint over a warehouse covered with graffiti.
Perry said most perpetrators are young, between 11 and 14.
A small portion of the graffiti is gang-related.
With the new graffiti-tracker system in place, the city has been able to input information into a database using a GPS-equipped camera.
Police said the system, which tracks extent of damages and locations of graffiti-marked property, gathers necessary evidence to help prosecute taggers.
The graffiti tracker cost the city $36,000 to implement and $24,000 a year to maintain.
With the expanded program, crews are able to remove graffiti on private property, as opposed to just city property and public right-of-way.
Property owners can contact the code-enforcement department to complete a release-of-
liability form for graffiti to be removed.
To report graffiti in the city, call the graffiti-removal hot line at (909) 481-7999 or visit online at reportgraffiti.cityofrc.us.
Call code enforcement for more information about the program at (909) 477-2712.
wendy.leung@dailybulletin.com
(909) 483-9376