FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, April 3, 2008
City and Community Embrace Aggressive Graffiti Stance
(Stockton, CA) - The Stockton City Council has taken an even more aggressive approach to addressing the blight created by graffiti by centralizing and increasing resources and encouraging the community to get involved with both clean-up and reporting vandals.
“We’ve ignited the community,” said Councilmember Clem Lee. “Alpha Omega students from UOP were the first out of the gate and will assist the Police Department’s Neighborhood Services Section with clean-up this Sunday. It just shows that everyone recognizes that graffiti brings our community down, and we’re not going to take it standing still.”
At this week’s City Council meeting, the Council unanimously approved a resolution to increase the resources for graffiti clean-up and the reward offered to those willing to report vandals. All graffiti clean-up is now centralized under the Police Department; 3 trucks were added to the fleet, totaling 6 trucks dedicated to combating graffiti; five additional staff members have been added to graffiti clean-up crews and overtime has been authorized to make certain that clean-up occurs quickly. The reward amount for tips leading to the arrest of vandals has been increased from $300 to allow for awards of up to $1,000.
The City of Stockton already had one of the most stringent graffiti ordinances in the country. The ordinance was enhanced in January 2007 to include additional penalties, requiring property owners to assist with removing and preventing graffiti on private property and holding parents accountable for graffiti vandalism done by their minor children. Even with such an aggressive ordinance on the books, the City cleaned-up over 3.5 million square feet of graffiti at a cost of more than $900,000 in 2007.
“Please don’t assume that someone else has called to report graffiti,” continued Councilmember Lee. “We really need the entire community engaged in both clean-up and reporting. We’ll even supply the paint.”
University of the Pacific Alpha Omega students will clean graffiti from the Union Pacific Railroad sound walls at Strawberry Way and Mezereon Way from 8:00 a.m. to noon, Sunday, April 6, 2008. For additional information about this project, please call Officer Pete Smith, Stockton Police Department, (209) 937-8209.
Members of the community should report graffiti at (209) 937-8040 and call 9-1-1 to report someone in the act of doing graffiti. Visit the Stockton Police Department web page, www.stocktongov.com/police, for additional information and resources about how to report, clean-up, or prevent graffiti.
###
|
Page
last updated