Tougher penalties For Graffiti Vandalism

Tougher penalties in new regulations
By Helen Gao
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 22, 2008
SAN DIEGO – Graffiti vandals will have a harder time shoplifting spray paint and broad-tipped indelible markers under new regulations that have received preliminary approval from the San Diego City Council.
The revisions also include tougher penalties for graffiti vandalism. The changes will be adopted after a second reading that could take place as early as next week.
The new regulations will require stores to keep items that are used for graffiti either in a locked display case or in an enclosed area behind a service counter, out of easy reach of minors and shoplifters.
Currently, such items can be left in the open as long as they remain under constant supervision by an employee. However, the city's code compliance department has indicated that vendors are not providing constant supervision.
Under the updated ordinance, markers with a tip 4 millimeters or broader and that use non-water-soluble ink must be secured. Other items that are already regulated as potential graffiti tools include aerosol paint and glass-etching products.
The ordinance, which got preliminary approval last week, also updates the municipal code by incorporating state penalties for graffiti offenses. Under those guidelines, vandals can be charged with a felony and get a state prison sentence of up to three years, pay up to $10,000 in fines and full restitution to victims and perform community service. State law also allows enhanced penalties for defacing cemeteries and houses of worship.
The municipal code, as it stands today, provides only for misdemeanor prosecutions of graffiti violators.
The new ordinance further requires the offices of the mayor and city attorney to provide annual reports to the City Council Committee on Public Safety and Neighborhood Services about graffiti cleanup and enforcement efforts.
The city has budgeted $1.6 million this fiscal year for graffiti abatement, enforcement and public education. That amount does not include what other agencies and private-property owners spend. The city receives 2,300 to 3,000 requests for graffiti removal per month.
To make a removal request, call the city's graffiti control hotline at (619) 525-8522 or visit sandiego.gov/graffiti/.
Helen Gao: (619) 718-5181; helen.gao@uniontrib.com

Rich people's graffiti

At one San Rafael home, graffiti art welcomed
By Paul Liberatore
In the subways of New York, the streets of Brooklyn, the barrios of Los Angeles and the Mission District of San Francisco, graffiti art is everywhere, a ubiquitous feature of the urban landscape.
Here in upper income, suburban Marin County, not so much. Graffiti is generally unwanted, out of place and misunderstood.
There's a big difference, for example, between illegal "tagging," clandestinely writing your name or initials, your "tag," on someone else's property, essentially defacing it, and the more sophisticated graffiti art, a cool new mural style that came from the streets and has evolved over the past 40 years into a legitimate art form, the only one created entirely by young people.
In one unusual Marin backyard, graffiti art is not only welcomed, it's celebrated. A relatively ordinary (at least from the outside) San Rafael home has been transformed into a spectacular showcase for the work of 32-year-old graffiti artist Max Ehrman.
Ehrman, who has a college degree in architecture and refers to himself as an "aerosol artist," spent 30 labor-intensive hours spray-painting a swirling, vividly colored "organic landscape" on what used to be a plain, wooden, 70-foot-long backyard fence.
"Now it has life," he says, "and energy."
In the underground lingo of graffiti artists, the fence is what is known as a "permission piece." It was commissioned by homeowner Philip Prigoff, a 22-year-old chef who shares the house with two roommates and wanted a piece of art
that would reflect his youthful lifestyle.
"For people my age, graffiti art is a pretty cool thing to be a part of," he says. "You won't find many neighbors around here with something like this in their backyard."
Admiring her son's great wall of graffiti one recent afternoon, Prigoff's mother, Bonnie, couldn't disagree. "It blows me away," she says.
"It's the first thing you see when you walk in the house," Philip goes on. "It's great to come home and enjoy a beautiful piece of art. There aren't many homes of people my age that have anything even resembling art in them."
For the Prigoffs, the appreciation of graffiti art runs in the family.
Prigoff's grandfather, Jim Prigoff, an 80-year-old retired Sara Lee Corp. vice president, is a world-renowned expert on urban art who has written several books on the subject, most notably "Spraycan Art."
"For graffiti artists, that's the bible," Ehrman says.
In an unlikely generational turnaround, when young Philip Prigoff wanted to get in touch with a graffiti artist to paint his fence, he turned to his grandfather.
"I tried to find an artist on my own, and that turned out to be the hardest thing I've ever done," he says. "Most of the people who do this kind of thing are pretty sketchy. They don't want to get in trouble. It was extremely hard to find someone, so I contacted my grandfather and he put me in touch with Max."
The elder Prigoff was happy to be of help, being a fan of Ehrman's work.
"It's beautiful," he says of his grandson's fence, "and I've seen a lot of graffiti art. Probably more than anyone. It's stunning."
Philip's younger sister, 19-year-old Chelsea Prigoff, was so impressed with her brother's fence that she commissioned Ehrman to spray-paint graffiti art on the walls of her new clothing boutique, the Pink Door, set to open at 1567 Fourth St. in San Rafael on May 30.
"I really love organic art," she says. "And when I saw Max's work, I saw that his colors and his textures relate well to what I do with my clothing. I'd always planned on picking my grandfather's brain. He was my inspiration to do more graffiti-esque art myself. He's an old guy with hip ways."
Read more San Rafael stories at the IJ's San Rafael page.
Contact Paul Liberatore via e-mail at liberatore@marinij.com

1.1 million payed for Ed Ruscha Monument

The U.S. government is among 11 defendants who will pay $1.1 million after painting over the six-story 'Ed Ruscha Monument.'
By Diane Haithman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer May 1, 2008
Los Angeles artist Kent Twitchell has settled his lawsuit against the U.S. government and 11 other defendants for painting over his six-story mural "Ed Ruscha Monument," painted on the side of a federal government-owned downtown building, for $1.1 million.The settlement, disclosed Wednesday, is believed to be the largest awarded under the federal Visual Artists Rights Act or the California Art Preservation Act, both of which prohibit desecration, alteration or destruction of certain works of public art without giving the artist 90 days' notice to allow the artist the option of removing the artwork."It was a tough fight," Twitchell said in an interview Wednesday. "I'm just sort of in shock and relief over it all."The U.S. government will pay $250,000 of the settlement. The other defendants are contractors and subcontractors responsible for managing and maintaining the building at 1031 S. Hill St., at Olympic Boulevard, which houses the Los Angeles Jobs Corps Center.Art consultants have said it still may be possible to restore the mural, a portrait of artist Ed Ruscha that was created between 1978 and 1987 and painted over in June 2006. However, both Twitchell and his attorney, William Brutocao of the Pasadena law firm Sheldon Mak Rose & Anderson, said that restoring the artwork at its current location is not a viable option."I could conceivably go up and repaint it, and they could say, 'Guess what, you've got three months to remove it,' " Twitchell said.Said Department of Labor spokesman David James, "While DOL was initially unaware of the damage, appropriate persons within DOL soon became aware of the loss and DOL acted promptly and responsibly to attempt to resolve the situation."Under the terms of the agreement, the artist has until June 2009 to decide what to do with the mural. "Maybe I remove portions of it. I thought of the hands and the head because they are most intricate" and re-create the rest, he said. "And then I still have all my original cartoons for the body, the entire body and all the shadows; I could duplicate those exactly. I could even duplicate those in a smaller size. Anything could happen."Although Twitchell said that some of the defendants in the case deplored the damage to the mural, he called the current site "a hostile location."Currently, Twitchell is halfway through the re-creation of another of his well-known Los Angeles murals: the 1974 work "Old Lady of the Freeway," alongside the Hollywood Freeway, which was painted out by a billboard company in 1986. Twitchell is repainting it on an outside wall of the Viva Gallery in Sherman Oaks.Twitchell has mixed feelings about creating murals in Los Angeles. "What's really discouraging about most public art is the way that, in this city of ours, spray paint vandalism has kind of taken over the streets," he said. "What was once the mural capital is now the graffiti capital -- although I don't call it graffiti, I call it spray paint vandalism. We cannot coexist."Added Twitchell, "Ironically, the city was actually in the process of cleaning spray paint off the Ed Ruscha mural when it was destroyed."Pat Gomez, a public art manager for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, said she was happy to hear that "the artists' rights have been recognized in this way. We hope that settlements such as this help get the word out to other property owners that these are important rights that need to be acknowledged through proper notice."Twitchell believes that these legal safeguards are necessary in the public art arena. "Without laws, we're not nice to each other; we try to beat the other guy out at the stop sign," he said. "Every law I can think of is to enforce good manners -- it keeps us civil."The Visual Artists Rights Act and the California Art Preservation Act, he says, fall into that "civil" category: "I'd be against a law that said you can't paint out a mural ever; I'd be against that as a public artist," he said. "But the law as it is written is really reasonable."diane.haithman@latimes.com

Alfredo Diaz Flores dead at 82

A brush with inspiration
Even tagging crews respected Alfredo's masterpieces
By Dennis McCarthy, Columnist

Alfredo Diaz Flores works on a mural at Chatsworth Park... (Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer)

One of the greatest artists to ever pick up a paintbrush in Los Angeles died last week at 82. His name was Alfredo Flores.
His works were never displayed in the Guggenheim or Getty, never made it inside any of Los Angeles' finer art galleries.
That wasn't Alfredo's style.
He wanted his art to breathe and be available free to the public, 24/7.
So Alfredo painted public walls and private buildings, in alleys covered in gang graffiti. He painted beautiful scenes of God and country, of patriotism and tradition.
You'd think gang members would be angry about having their "artwork" painted over. You'd think they might retaliate and deface Alfredo's work - but they didn't.
They didn't touch his murals of church missions or the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima.
That's because it was an unwritten code among street gangs in this city that Alfredo's walls were off-limits for tagging.
He began painting his historical and religious murals in the 1970s when he was still working as a grocery clerk. Art was his passion, but selling groceries paid the bills and helped him raise three children - Annette, Richard and Arthur.
He painted more than 80 murals in East Los Angeles, and 50 others are scattered on walls throughout the San Fernando Valley. All of them are free of graffiti.
"In this neighborhood, that's saying something," John Gerado said in 2002 when I stopped by to see a 40-foot-long

historical mural Alfredo had painted in 1979 on a wall outside Gerado's Canoga Park radiator shop.
All the surrounding walls were covered in graffiti except for the one with Alfredo's mural. In 22 years, it remained untouched, except for Alfredo stopping by every 10 years or so to touch it up.
"The only way you're going to stop taggers is to give them something meaningful to think about, something they can respect," Flores told me on the drive over to a graffiti-ridden alley in Arleta later that day.
A friend from church had asked him to take a look and see what he could do. The local homeowners would paint over the graffiti a couple of times a week, but the taggers would return at night and put up their gang slogans again.
Alfredo and a couple of young muralists he was tutoring spent the next few weeks painting murals of Mount Rushmore, an eagle with a U.S. flag in its mouth and Jesus walking on water.
Even taggers have respect for heritage, he said. For the old ways and past generations.
"There's a dignity to it, and leaving my murals alone is their way of showing it," Alfredo said at the time. "They'll tag both sides of a mural, but never the work itself."
A few months later, I drove down the alley to see how Alfredo's murals were doing. There wasn't a mark on them.
Once in a while, he would take his work inside, but there had to be a good reason.
Alfredo turned the walls at the children's sanctuary at Christ Community Church in Winnetka into murals, where he and longtime member Joe Siracusa were volunteer greeters for a decade.
Siracusa said his musical background and Alfredo's artistic background gradually drew them together - along with the fact that both liked to socialize.
"On a personal basis, he was just a source of spirituality to all of us," Siracusa said of Alfredo, who was also an ordained minister. "He was such a joy to work with, I can't tell you. He was such an uplifting person to the whole church."
Alfredo also turned the cold, institutional walls inside a county building - where 6,000 developmentally disabled people living in the Valley received help - into a breathtaking, colorful, 45-by-9-foot mural of the San Fernando Mission.
And he turned the stark waiting-room walls in children's hospitals and pediatric care units into happy playgrounds and colorful zoos.
"Making this city a more beautiful place to live, and bringing a smile to a child with his artwork, was Dad's passion," says Art Flores, his son.
Daughter Annette Tachet recalls her father painting portraits and landscapes on canvas before turning to murals, and says all six of his grandchildren have an artistic flair.
"He taught me a lot ... particularly that your dreams can be achieved no matter how big they are - that they're possible," she says.
Tachet says her father left school before eighth grade to work 16-hour days to help support his parents.
"But that love, the dream of art, he never let it die. No matter how hard he worked, throughout life ... he kept that as his passion."
And she says her father's capacity to try to reach out and help others transcended his public artwork.
"He just had such a love for people that I've just never seen in anybody," she says. "He made himself available to people whether it was a stranger on the street or his own family that he deeply loved and cared for."
That's why more than 500 people crammed into Calvary Chapel Mid Valley in Encino on Saturday for more than two hours.
To say goodbye to one of the greatest artists to ever pick up a paintbrush in this city.

Graffiti Mural in L.A.

L.A. Wants to Whitewash Graffiti Mural
By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON

It was a graffiti artist's dream come true: 10,000 square feet of concrete and a permit to paint. Families brought their kids to watch as hundreds of muralists, using their own materials and working for free, sprayed technicolor shades on the steep banks of an ugly, manmade riverbed.
Not everyone was pleased, however, with the results of the civic-minded effort, which had the city's blessing but has rekindled debates over whether Los Angeles County should condone a practice it pays millions to combat.
Some politicians protested that parts of the mural are obscene and have attracted gang-related tags in a city where graffiti already mars homes, sidewalks and buildings. The county has given organizers until Wednesday to whitewash the mural, and neither side is backing down.
"It would be beautiful if the river went back to its natural state and was actually a river and a park," said Alex Poli, a graffiti artist and gallery owner known as "Man One." "But right now we have concrete walls, so the next best thing is to beautify it with art."
The site in question, a concrete canyon where a tributary, Arroyo Seco, meets the Los Angeles River, is surrounded by an industrial neighborhood on the edge of downtown and, like most of the river's 51 miles, is hemmed in by artificial banks to control floods.
To obtain the permit from a maze of local governments and regulatory agencies, Poli enlisted the Friends of the Los Angeles River, an environmental organization that works with the multiple agencies that control the river.
Poli organized the public art project on a sunny weekend in September, and the artists created a canvas full of bold, abstract graffiti script and some edgy imagery: a sorcerer in a hoodie sweatshirt conjuring a spray can, an angel cradling a man, a pig in a suit smoking marijuana, the Hollywood sign in flames and scantily clad women.
County Supervisor Gloria Molina promptly demanded the mural's removal, complaining that some of the images were inappropriate for a public art display near where city planners want to build bike paths. The environmental group's mission is to protect the river, and "this seemed like an odd way to do it," said Roxane Marquez, a Molina spokeswoman.
Marquez said Poli hasn't kept his promise to organize a volunteer touchup crew to keep the surrounding concrete pristine and free of gang tags and extra graffiti.
Poli said the politicians don't understand the difference between graffiti and graffiti art, which is exhibited in museums and galleries around the world.
"People still have trouble considering it art because we use a spray can," he said.
In mid-October, some of the murals were whitewashed without warning. Molina and the Department of Public Works denied involvement, but in December, Molina got the county Board of Supervisors to pass an emergency motion giving the Friends of the Los Angeles River 90 days to paint over the murals or pay up to $70,000 for their removal.
County crews removed about 60 million square feet of graffiti in 2006 at a cost of about $32 million, county officials have said.
The Friends group stands by the idea of having art by the river, spokeswoman Shelly Backlar said. But the organization, which is scrambling to rebuild its stock with the county and the agencies that supervise the river, concedes some of what the artist put into the mural might not belong there.
"It's their permit and their event, and we've been pulled in because of the work that we do," Backlar said. "It's not what we thought it would be."
City Councilman Ed Reyes, who originally supported Poli's project and authorized the permit, said he regrets that decision because he believes the art has attracted gang members, who have added their tags to the riverbed walls.
The graffiti "spilled out of the river channel, into the sidewalks, onto the handrails, into buildings," Reyes said. "Before it was a neutral place, but now we have clear indicators that rival gangs and taggers are showing up there."
More tagging has steadily accumulated at the Arroyo Seco site since last fall. Other artists have primed their own pieces of concrete and added to the project, extending the murals a few dozen yards.
Poli condemns taggers but sees the more ambitious work as copycats — students learning from the masters. Tagging increased after parts of the mural were whitewashed, including offensive images directed at Molina and county officials.
"The county needs to wake up," said Kalen Ockerman, who paints under the name "Mear One." "The rest of the world is busy paying kids to do this stuff," on album covers and billboards.
Poli considered painting over the murals, "because of all the grief." He's also talking to lawyers, hoping that a strongly worded letter will stop the county from billing the environmental group or his gallery.
"We did nothing illegal and we had permits," he said. "We're in the business of creating art, not destroying it."

Nicolus Rodriguez Prolific? Graffiti Vandal Arrested

SLO Police: Prolific graffiti vandal arrested

Graffiti paraphernalia allegedly seized from the home of Nicolus Rodriguez.
Click any image to enlarge.

A San Luis Obispo man has been arrested in connection with at least 24 incidents of graffiti vandalism around the city.
Investigators from the San Luis Obispo Police Department have been trying for the past few months to find an active graffiti vandal who commonly tagged the word “PILO” onto bridges, trash dumpsters, signs, signal boxes and railroad property. Postal service stickers were also applied to signs with graffiti on them. The suspect frequently tagged the Cal Poly campus.
Investigators eventually linked the graffiti to Nicolus Rodriguez, 24, according to a department news release. On March 27, investigators served a search warrant at Rodriguez’s home at 1352 Palm Street, #C and confiscated 73 aerosol spray paint cans, permanent marking pens, postal service stickers and photographs of graffiti. The suspect allegedly had numerous sketch books the contained the word “PILO.”
Rodriguez was arrested on suspicion of felony vandalism. He was booked at County Jail, where bail was set at $10,000.
The investigation is ongoing, but it is estimated the graffiti damage is into the thousands of dollars.

Tagger Caught in the Act

A Rocklin teen was caught in the act while painting graffiti on the skate park at Johnson-Springview Park last week.
In the early afternoon on March 6, an alert neighbor called police after she witnessed a man defacing the skate park with graffiti, police said.
“We were fortunate that a witness actually saw somebody do it this time,” said Lt. Lon Milka of the Rocklin Police Department. “We usually don’t catch them in the act.”
Milka said the witness, whose name was not released, provided a great description of the man and when officers arrived, he back on his skateboard enjoying the park.
Police arrested Charles Erickson Raitz, 19, of Rocklin for defacing property with graffiti. Raitz was later cited and released, Milka said.
Milka said graffiti is quite common at the skate park and usually police simply make a report and the city of Rocklin will come out and cover it up.
While graffiti might be considered a low-level crime, Milka said, it can attract other kinds of criminal activity.
He said vandalism and graffiti like that usually attracts other graffiti artists and pretty soon a given area can quickly get marked up and defaced.
“I know we’ve seen that in other areas around Sacramento,” Milka said. “We are just trying to keep Rocklin cleaned up.”
The Rocklin Police Department asks residents to call the dispatch center when they see graffiti and particularly when they witness defacing in progress.
“We take graffiti and tagging seriously at the police department,” Milka said. “We have a task force that focuses on it and through the task force we get it cleaned up as soon as practical.”

Gang Problem in Live Oak

Gang problem lurks in Live Oak: Graffiti war latest issue, could lead to more violence
Jennifer Squires - Sentinel staff writer
Article Launched: 03/02/2008
LIVE OAK -- A fatal gang shooting on 17th Avenue in late January drew attention to a problem Live Oak residents have noticed for quite some time: gangs are rife in their neighborhoods.
For the most part, the gangsters keep to themselves, but problems become apparent when they spray-paint tags on playgrounds and fences, break into cars or get into fist fights on street corners.
The late-afternoon January shooting in the middle of a busy street that left bullets embedded in a nearby house emphasized how scary it can get. To get away, the victim begged a passing motorist for a ride.
Although there's long been gang issues in Live Oak, a spate of violent incidents leading up to the shooting and a recent surge in graffiti connected to three separate gangs has law enforcement officials and residents concerned more violence could be on tap.
"I don't like it, that's for sure," said Brandon Fitzgerald, 24, who lives near the spot where Oscar Javier Jaquez, 17, is accused of shooting Servando Silonsochilt, 27, five times on Jan. 29. Silonsochilt died the next day.
After the shooting, the Sheriff's Office reported Jaquez had allegedly brandished the gun at a different man moments before he targeted Silonsochilt and detectives started probing past violent incidents in the neighborhood that Jaquez and other young suspected gang members might be involved in.
"It's a real affront, a real vile thing to have someone
capitalize on physical intimidation and that's what gangs do," sheriff's Sgt. Fred Plageman said.
Fitzgerald wasn't home when Silonsochilt, who was riding his bike on 17th Avenue, was gunned down, but the lifelong Live Oak resident said he's seen his share of gang crime.
"There was fight that broke out a couple months before that where we saw a guy get his face broken with a bat," Fitzgerald said.
Sheriff's deputies raided the house of a neighbor suspected of selling methamphetamine and a while back he called 911 because he heard someone smashing a car window, Fitzgerald said.
Gang problems are not new to Live Oak. Fights and minor stabbings are not unusual, and jurors last summer convicted two teens of attempted murder for shooting a man walking near 17th Avenue and Merrill in February 2006.
A rash of violent incidents likely associated with gangs have cropped up in Live Oak in recent months, according to the Sheriff's Office.
Gang members armed with knives got into a fight on the 2300 block of 17th Avenue in September, but the guy who was hurt refused to tell deputies who he had been fighting with, according to sheriff's Sgt. Mario Sulay. In October, gang members stole a bike from a teenager during a confrontation in front of Live Oak Elementary School.
In early January, a man was attacked by a group and stabbed outside a party on 7th Avenue. Two weeks before the fatal shooting, a suspected gang member brandished a knife and a gun in the same area where Silonsochilt was shot, according to the Sheriff's Office.
The gang problems also spread into Soquel, where there have been gang-related assaults at the high school.
"I think there's always been gang activity," Plageman said. "We see it ebb and flow."
A study of the Live Oak community released last month pointed out that one-third of the violent crimes committed in the Sheriff's Office jurisdiction last year happened in Live Oak. In 2006, only 28 percent of the violence was attributed to that community.
After the fatal shooting, neighbors said they were concerned about safety -- one family talked about moving out of Live Oak because of the violence -- but they also said the frequent burglaries and graffiti are really frustrating.
Sarah Winterburn, the Graffiti Removal Project coordinator for the Volunteer Centers of Santa Cruz, said her group has seen a three-fold increase in the amount of graffiti in Live Oak and Soquel in recent months.
"Most of it was gangs. It's just overwhelming," she said.
Some of the tags are about the fatal shooting, but a lot of it is related to a three rival gangs vying for territory in Mid-County, according to Sulay.
"We're starting to notice competing graffiti between gangs," he said. "The graffiti's picked up. That's something that concerns us."
Bob Farmer works with the Graffiti Removal Project to paint over or power wash off the gang tags.
"We've been having a lot," he said. "It seems like there's something going off."
In the past two weeks, tags have been painted on the blue balls in Anna Jean Cummings County Park on Soquel San Jose Road, in downtown Soquel, on overpasses and bridges, and at neighborhood schools, according to the Sheriff's Office.
"It's gang members and associates staking out their territory," Plageman said. "It's a challenge, it's bragging rights and it ultimately leads to physical confrontation and more serious crimes."
Deputies said it's only a matter of time before there is more gang-related violence in Live Oak.
"Wherever the gang members are, that's where the trouble is at," Plageman said, explaining the problems can be traced back to who is in custody in County Jail or serving a state prison sentence. "It seems to go in little spurts."
For their part, sheriff's deputies try to drive through parks and other spots in Live Oak where neighbors report problems or where there's been trouble in the past. From Dec. 1 to mid-February, deputies performed more than 150 of these "area checks" in Live Oak, in addition to responding to crimes, according to Sheriff's Office records.
But gang members still manage to get their tags on sidewalks and rock walls.
"We can't be everywhere at once," Plageman said, suggesting residents call 911 to report any crimes they see and also organize Neighborhood Watch groups to deter gangs from hanging out on their streets. "If people in the community work together and support each other, that's a way."
That works in some areas. Last year, residents living near Jose Avenue Park organized to report crime at the park and met with county Supervisor Jan Beautz, county Parks and Recreation representatives and the sheriff's sergeant who oversees Live Oak to hash out solutions for their neighborhood.
But since the fatal shooting and spike in gang-related vandalism this year, other neighborhoods have not responded with as much gusto. So far, neither residents nor law enforcement have scheduled neighborhood meetings.
"It seems like people really aren't that into doing much," Fitzgerald said.
The Sheriff's Office has teamed with other county police agencies to do a couple of Joint Area Gang operations. Deputies have offered to meet with Live Oak residents interested in Neighborhood Watch and detectives investigating the fatal shooting have asked residents for help tracking past violence in the area.
But Sulay also said it's unrealistic to think law enforcement can completely eliminate the gang problem.
"The fact is, gangs have been around for generations," Sulay said. "Can we control gangs? That's the goal."Contact Jennifer Squires at 429-2449 or jsquires@santacruzsentinel.com.

Problems with Graffiti Discussed

Graffiti in college area is the focus of meeting
Neighborhoods are bearing cost of increased incidents
By Michele Willer-AllredCorrespondentSaturday, February 23, 2008
Residents living in several neighborhoods near Moorpark College met Thursday night to discuss ways to curb a growing graffiti problem in the area surrounding their homes, as well as the entire city.
Cynthia Chambers, chairwoman of the Varsity Park Homeowners Association Security Committee, organized the meeting attended by residents and members of three homeowners' association boards representing neighborhoods around the college.
Chambers said she organized the meeting because of the increased graffiti in her neighborhood and the rising costs homeowners' associations must pay to fix the problem.
"Many people in our area are alarmed because we don't normally see this type of crime at this high level of occurrence," she said. "Both sides of Moorpark are being hit.
"I feel like I've been victimized. I know graffiti leads to other crimes, and I want something done. I don't want our property values to go down any further," she said.
Chambers offered several suggestions during the meeting to discourage taggers, including adding motion-detecting lights, putting in thorny plants and using graffiti-proof paint on walls frequently targeted. She also suggested after-school Neighborhood Watch programs to supplement city patrols, which, she said, have been infrequent around her neighborhood.
Chambers circulated a petition during the meeting that she hopes to submit to the Moorpark City Council, asking for a graffiti abatement hotline, similar to one already operating in Simi Valley. The Simi program offers the removal of graffiti from public and private property by a private contractor within 24 hours of its being reported.
David Lasher, senior management analyst for Moorpark's Community Development Department, attended the meeting to answer questions.
"Moorpark, like every city in Ventura County, is addressing the increase in graffiti through a number of methods and means. The scourge of graffiti costs the city dearly, and the funds that are obligated to remove this vandalism could be much better utilized for our residents," Lasher said.
While he supports many of the ideas suggested, Lasher said taggers have become more sophisticated and have found ways to beat measures aimed at deterring them.
Lasher said the city staff might propose a revision to existing graffiti laws to include a $1,000 per incident penalty, based on a recommendation from the Ventura Council of Governments.
Lasher said he wasn't familiar with the graffiti hotline available in Simi Valley, but said Moorpark residents can call 517-6232 to report graffiti.