08-22-11 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING AUGUST 22, 2011 and businesses.), 53 public parks, 84 pieces of public property (signs, bridges, utility boxes), 42 properties have been “retagged” after their initial cleaning and cleaned again. 11 sites have done by the property owner, SBPD has done 130 individual sites, Weed and See has painted 15 sites. He stated that the City of South Bend’s Graffiti Abatement Program has cleaned 497 individual sites of graffiti. Furthermore out of the 173 sites on private property, 101 of those were identified and cited by Code Enforcement. The remaining 72 property owners signed waivers allowing us to legally work on the site. It is estimated that there are an additional 200 sites out there not yet reported. To date the Parks Department has spent 759.50 man hours and $15,846.81 in payroll in our budget. 448.80 of those hours and $6,184.30 of that cost is spent on the actual removal of graffiti with the remaining 310.70 hours and $9,662.503 being spent on site inspection and travel. A large portion of the crew’s time is spent finding addresses and getting permission to perform the work on private property, either through a signed waiver or a citation by Code Enforcement. In many cases we’ve had to simply walk door to door and speak to people about the program and leave printed information in their door if they were not home. To date we have spent $5,644.96 in materials for the Parks Department program. Additionally we have spent $3,885 purchasing supplies for the SBPD crew as well as an estimated $1,240 in site inspections. All of our capital purchases have been purchased under budget with a combined savings of $4,183 with the exception of the trucks which are currently out to bid through Equipment Services. Mr. St. Clair stated that they are extremely positive with the overall success of the program. For the few short months it has been in existence we have had noticeable results within the neighborhoods of the City of South Bend are establishing positive one-on-one relationships with the community. He stated that they are constantly working to provide a quick response time especially regarding vulgarity and gang related graffiti. Once such a site is reported we often are able to clean the site with 48 hours. A fast response time is critical to a successful abatement program and we often clean “re-tagged” sites within 24 hours. They have developed and maintain a robust database with the SBPD that includes not only the addresses but also the names of the “tagger” and content of the graffiti. This gives them the potential to track individual taggers and trends. In addition the Park Department also catalogues all of the graffiti sites with before and after pictures to aid in our tracking. Using the internet and various social media programs we have been able to watch and track individual “taggers” in order to facilitate cleaning up their graffiti. By watching their websites and the pictures they post we have found a large number of sites to clean. The crews communicate face to face with residents while we work in neighborhoods. He stated that if they are working on an identified site they will walk along the street and go door to door with waivers and information regarding the program. They have also set up specific times to meet with homeowners and business owners so that they can see the removal technique in person. He stated that the crews are very flexible and able to respond quickly as needed. Beyond graffiti removal and maintaining the SBPD database they also have an educational aspect to the graffiti program. They have gone out and spoke to volunteer groups at St. Adalbert about the negative impact of graffiti in their neighborhood. The St. Adalbert group has currently logged over 50 hours of volunteer work removing graffiti with plans for 200 hours more. In addition, the SBPD has highlighted the impact of graffiti in a Crime Stoppers commercial and plan to have their School Resource Officers provide additional education within the school system. He stated that they would like to streamline the process of identifying and reporting sites in order to improve effectiveness. While in 2011 they had a large existing back log of graffiti, in 2012 they want to cut down on the cost and time it takes them to find, report, and get permission to perform work at the address. As the City continues to move forward with an integrated job order and facility management system they should be able to increase overall effectiveness as they cut down on paperwork, site inspections, and travel time. He stated that they have been striving for a personal relationship with the community they recognize that community involvement is the key to a successful graffiti removal program. They did not receive as many community reported sites containing graffiti as they projected they would. He stated that they are currently working on ways to improve the ease at which the community can report graffiti around the city, with a heavy focus on the Parks and Recreation’s new web page which is currently under a massive re-design and set to go live 9/12/11. Due to winter approaching they will focus and be shifting towards street and traffic signs that are often difficult to clean and often must be replaced. They have also looked into commercial 2