Countywide : Board to Review Anti-Graffiti Report

The Board of Supervisors will review a package of anti-graffiti tactics today that officials hope will halt the multimillion-dollar assault by spray-paint vandals on county signs, freeways and buildings.

A month after politicians, police and prosecutors pledged to curb the pervasive graffiti fad known as tagging, the supervisors will consider strategies such as hiring a full-time abatement coordinator and creating a volunteer cleanup campaign.

The Environmental Management Agency report to be reviewed focuses on ways to broaden and intensify county efforts to clean up graffiti, which already costs county agencies an estimated $4 million a year.

A six-month trial run of the recommended programs, combined with efforts underway, would cost $255,000, the report shows.

Chief among the suggestions is the hiring of an abatement coordinator who would oversee cleanup efforts, act as liaison to other agencies combatting the vandalism and organize community volunteers.

The report also recommends setting a seven-day cleanup goal for Environmental Management Agency crews, which means no tag on county land would go uncovered longer than a week. Even with the stronger commitment to abatement, Public Works Operations Supervisor Rick Schooley said that is “an ambitious” undertaking.

“It’s going to be difficult, but we’re ready to hit it hard” Schooley said. “We’re talking about 310 miles of flood-control channels and 457 miles of county-maintained roads, so it won’t be easy.”

Among the report’s other recommendations:

* Outfit squads of volunteers from civic, educational and corporate organizations with paint, brushes and rollers, disposable safety vests and work gloves. Adopt-a-Park, Adopt-a-Highway and Adopt-a-Wall will be the three subgroups within the campaign, with the latter aimed at cleaning the hard-hit walls along county flood-control property.

* Expand staffing. The report suggests committing seven Environmental Management Agency employees to the effort, including a pair of two-member cleanup crews. For the past year, county crews have devoted just four to six work days each month to cleanup, with court-ordered inmate crews working another two days, the report states.

* Augment the efforts of county crews and volunteers by contracting with nonprofit organizations for inexpensive cleanup labor. The report states that preliminary talks have begun with the Orange County Assn. for Retarded Citizens and Goodwill Industries.

* Create a mechanism to notify owners of graffiti-scarred property in unincorporated areas or in cities along county flood channels that they need to cover up graffiti on their property or allow county crews to do so.