Graffiti Busters Program Smashes Record For Cleaned Sites

July 2, 2008 · By EditorcloseAuthor: Editor Name: Kathee Austin
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About: Kathee Austin is principal in a number of successful investment, marketing, media, publishing and technology related businesses in Arizona. With a passion to support the communities in which she lives and works, serving as Editor and Publisher of EVLiving.com offers her an outlet to interact regularly with the local business and residential community as well as with website visitors from around the world. Kathee is easily reached on any matter related to EVLiving. Call her office at 480.998.0246

The city of Phoenix Graffiti Busters cleaned a record high 95,000 graffiti sites for the 2007-08 fiscal year, a 50 percent increase over last year’s record of 63,000 sites.

Representatives from the Neighborhood Services Department, which oversees the Graffiti Busters program, attribute the increase to efficiency improvements.’

One efficiency effort included adding paint-matching equipment on maintenance trucks, allowing Graffiti Busters to color-match paint on the spot in neighborhoods rather than return to the warehouse and color-match the paint there.

“We’re stepping up our war against graffiti on many different fronts,” said Jerome Miller, Neighborhood Services director. “But we need more neighborhood groups and businesses to step up to the plate and help us clean graffiti as well.”

Graffiti Busters has a free, tool-lending program in which neighborhood groups and businesses are provided with free paint, tools and training to clean graffiti in their areas. See the fact sheet below for additional information about graffiti.

• Graffiti Facts
  Through its Graffiti Busters program, the Neighborhood Services Department has 14 full-time employees working seven days a week in 10-hour shifts to clean graffiti throughout the city.
• The Graffiti Busters program costs taxpayers $2.3 million annually. Citywide, department representatives estimate that more than $6 million is spent to clean graffiti on behalf of other city departments, local utilities and other governmental entities.
• NSD has installed more than 50 flash cameras throughout the city in heavily tagged areas in an attempt to photograph graffiti vandals in action.
• The Phoenix Police Department has three, full-time detectives assigned to identify, apprehend and help prosecute graffiti vandals. Police arrest an average of 40 graffiti vandals each month.
• Under a new state law, juveniles convicted for graffiti are now fined between $300 and $1,000, plus pay an 80 percent surcharge for court costs. This translates into a minimum fine of $540 and a maximum fine of $1,800.
• Approximately $200,000 has been handed out in graffiti reward funds since the program was established in 1995.
• Dan Grubb Ford joined forces with the Graffiti Busters program, employing a full-time staff member who cleans tagged sites in the Maryvale area. NSD provides the paint and paint-sprayer to Dan Grubb.
• Graffiti Busters has a free, tool-lending program that provides free paint, tools and training to neighborhood groups, schools and businesses interested in cleaning graffiti in their areas. For more information, call 602-495-0323.
• Real estate officials indicate that neighborhoods tagged with graffiti see property values drop by as much as 15 percent.
• Among Phoenix residents who have joined the city’s graffiti-busting efforts are a 76-year-old senior in Maryvale and a 15-year-old in central/east Phoenix.
• Several local Eagle Scout troops routinely conduct graffiti cleanups.
• If residents see a graffiti vandal in action, they are urged to call 9-1-1.