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The City is doing OK in regards to public property, but the greatest problem lies with private property. The current process is as follows.
A call is received by DPW (now via 311) about the location and description of graffiti on private property.
An SR (Service Request) is generated and the SR number is communicated to the citizen who made the report and the SR is forwarded to DPW.
DPW sends someone out to the property to post an NOV (Notice of Violation) on the premises, a picture is taken of the graffiti and a copy of the NOV is also mailed (certified mail?). I believe that the picture is in digital format with a date and time stamp in order for it to be admissible as evidence.
This whole process may take 2-5 days to occur allowing for administrative process.
As per the NOV, the property owner/manager has 30 days to abate the graffiti.
If the owner claims that it was abated, someone from DPW goes back out and reinspects the property. If it is clean, the SR is closed. If the owner does not respond or if it is not clean, the 30 day period is still in effect from the date of the original NOV.
If the owner does not abate within 30 days, DPW will forward the NOV to the City Attorney’s office.
The City Attorney then notifies the owner in writing of the failure to abide by the NOV and informs them of proceedings whereby DPW will abate the graffiti. There is a charge for abatement and there is also a fine. I am not quite sure how long the CA gives the owner to abate it before the DPW abatement begins. The owner does have the right to file a hardship appeal.
If the owner fails to pay the fine and fees for abatement, the CA proceeds with a lien on the property.
If I am correct, this process, from the moment that the SR is generated, should take no more than 60-90 days and that allows for plenty of time for the SR and NOV to be generated and mailed, for 30 days to pass, for the CA to move ahead with penalizing the property owner and for DPW to abate the graffiti. This is a very generous view of the allowable time that graffiti should be present from the time of reporting. I would like to think that this can be brought down to 45-60 days.
With this framework I mind, I would like to make the following suggestions.
These suggestions bear in mind the limitations on staffing and budget. I am not sure, but I would assume that some of the changes could be financed with the revenues from fines and abatement, but that is purely an assumption.
1. With the recent implementation of 311 and eventually SFStat, every report of graffiti should be fully documented and traceable. As it stands right now, 311 is receiving much larger call volume than anticipated. This can be alleviated with the activation of the 311 web-based reporting portal. I am aware that it is built and functional, but has simply not been turned on. This portal would allow citizens, such as me, to report graffiti with very specific details and to be able to attach a photo and instantly receive an SR. In addition, the implementation of SFStat, as soon as possible, will allow everyone, from the Mayorí’ Office to the common citizen, to be able to track the progress of the SR. In two words ACCOUNTABILITY and TRANSPARENCY. This would address the type of inadequacy demonstrated at the beginning of this e-mail.
2. The process detailed above highlights duplicity of process. DPW has to send a DPW employee out to the property to photograph the property and to post the NOV. This is done after someone calls in to report the graffiti. DPW should create the position(s) of Graffiti Enforcement Officer. This would be a DPW employee that would function much like a Parking Enforcement Officer. This person would patrol the City, armed with a digital camera, a log of some sort and the authority to issue NOVs on the spot. This is a proactive approach that mirrors the efforts of private citizens with no significant additional expense. This would not require new budget line items; rather it would require the redeployment of existing employees. DPW already allocates employees time to go out to reported properties, thus there no real additional resources would be required. The reason that I feel this proposal is feasible is that I, alone with a bike, a camera, a pen and paper can document and report, via e-mail, up to 50 reports of graffiti in one morning with about 5 hours of my time that I volunteer. If I can report 50 violations in 5 hours, a DPW officer could generate much more in an 8 hour day, 5 days a week (400 per week).
3. DPW sometimes seems to have problems following through on reports because they lack property owner information. This implies that there are property owners who do not pay property taxes. Every property should have an accessible tax record that DPW should be able to access in order to issue NOVs and for the City Attorney to take action if necessary. How can this be facilitated and resolved?
Some other proposals that are on the table are being worked on by the Graffiti Advisory Board. If DPW can tighten up its execution of its procedures and process SRs/NOVs in a timely and accurate manner, the GAB could proceed with other policies that will improve the prevention of graffiti in the City. These include:
1. Shorten the tolerance period from 30 days to 2 weeks. This is only possible if DPW becomes efficient enough to handle this short turnaround time.
2. Seek uniformity in sentencing by designating a dedicated graffiti judge to handle all cases of perpetrators of graffiti vandalism. There is currently great variability in the quality of sentencing. The GAB has already partially addressed this issue with the assignment of a dedicated graffiti law clerk at the City Attorney’s office.
3. In addition, the amount of community service that is assigned to graffiti vandals (depending on number of offenses) should be increased from a minimum of 90 hours to at least 250 hours (Los Angeles County is 1000 hours). The community service should be strictly limited to graffiti abatement.
4. The NOVs should be modified to reflect a statement similar to the following: Graffiti Attracts Graffiti. Graffiti abatement efforts have demonstrated that if graffiti is present on a building or surface, it is much more likely to attract other graffiti vandals who attempt to compete or gain visibility. The immediate removal of graffiti is the best deterrent to attracting frequent and additional graffiti vandalism. In addition, the NOV should include a list of resources such as City approved graffiti-removal contractors (as done with the Corridor Program).
As you can see from above, my efforts as a Citizen Watchdog demonstrate the current ineffectiveness of DPW in dealing with their responsibility in graffiti abatement on private property. I have made very concrete and realistic proposals based on my personal experience. These include the full utilization of the great investment made in 311 and SFStat. I do not propose anything that would require significant expenditures, but simply propose efficient utilization of resources and the elimination of duplicate processes. The creation and implementation of a Graffiti Enforcement Officer position could be extremely effective. These proposals are realistic and executable almost immediately. The GAB works very hard to deal with the issue of graffiti on private property, but it is demonstrated that the bottleneck exists in DPW and that the shortcomings are fixable.
Because of the pervasiveness and visibility of graffiti in San Francisco, the results of addressing this issue are very tangible. When a resident, commuter, or tourist enters our City on the Bay Bridge or the Freeways from the South bay, one cannot avoid seeing all of the highly visible graffiti and thinking that SF is a dump and The City doesn’t care or is helpless against this sort of blight. If we can make these changes and achieve progress on this front, it can be a highly visible result that the City can hold up as a sign of progress and achievement.
Name Withheld
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