THOUSAND OAKS : Mayor Calls for Graffiti Crackdown

From establishing a volunteer cleanup squad to locking up spray cans in retail stores, the city should intensify efforts to wipe out graffiti, Thousand Oaks Mayor Judy Lazar said in a report distributed Tuesday.

Thousand Oaks already spends nearly $100,000 a year to remove graffiti, said Hans Saber, landscape maintenance supervisor.

Three public works employees devote about 60% of each workday to painting over unsightly markings, Saber said. They aim to remove graffiti from public property within 24 hours and will step in--for a fee--if residents fail to erase scrawls on their property within five days.

Despite this vigilance, tagging has shot up dramatically this spring, with the city recording 586 graffiti incidents in the first three months this year, compared with 245 in the first quarter of 1992, Saber said.

To combat the recent outbreak of graffiti, Lazar proposed that retailers keep tight control over spray cans and large marking pens. She suggested that convicted taggers should be required to clean graffiti as part of their sentences.

And she said she knew of several volunteers willing to join a cleanup squad to eradicate graffiti on private property.

“It’s what we need, plain and simple,� Lazar said.

One prospective volunteer, longtime Thousand Oaks resident Jimmy Sloan, predicted that an anti-graffiti team “would send a message to the community that we won’t allow eyesores here, and would send a message to taggers that as soon as they put something up, we’ll take it down.�

Gina Lane, a Neighborhood Watch liaison for Las Casitas housing project, agreed that Thousand Oaks must clamp down on graffiti.

“If we don’t do anything to stop this, we’ll be just another small city with big-city problems,� Lane said.