City Plans to Make Quick Work of Graffiti

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, concerned about an increase in graffiti in the city, announced plans yesterday to step up cleaning efforts, saying the city will sometimes remove markings on private property without getting approval from owners.

Fenty (D), D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) and William O. Howland Jr., director of the Department of Public Works, held a news conference at a site chosen to illustrate the problem: an alley in the 1300 block of Florida Avenue NW.

The adjacent buildings were defaced with black-and-white spray-painted markings. Before the news conference, Public Works employees sprayed a solvent called Taginator over the graffiti on the walls and later blasted them clean with heated water.

The city's graffiti-abatement plan was developed after officials observed a recent increase in graffiti throughout Northwest Washington. Officials said some of the tags are gang-related, so getting rid of the eyesores can also contribute to crime prevention.

"This is not the District of the Columbia that we want to represent to the rest of the world," Fenty said.

Residents with graffiti on their property would have their options outlined on a tag that DPW would leave on their doors. Legislation to enact the plan will go to the council at its July 10 legislative meeting.

According to the plan, owners would be asked to give consent to remove graffiti, and they would be given the chance to pick up graffiti-removal kits or paint vouchers from DPW to get rid of the markings themselves. The kit includes a paint roller, a paint pan and solvent that is applied to graffiti on the sides of buildings before it is sprayed with a hose.

The goal is to slash the time it takes to remove graffiti and to discourage offenders. Currently, it can take 40 days before the city is allowed to remove graffiti on private property.

But under the new plan, DPW could bypass owners and remove graffiti if there is no response within 72 hours.

The plan proposes a penalty for owners who decline to have the city remove graffiti.

The legislation also increases the reward given citizens who provide information that leads to a graffiti conviction, raising it from $50 to $500. Penalties for tagging include $250 to $5,000 in fines and imprisonment of up to a year.

Other efforts to discourage graffiti include the allotment of $100,000 in the city's fiscal 2008 budget to support community murals and $250,000 for graffiti-proof paint to cover some of the writing on the sides of buildings, Graham said.

"Sometimes we remove graffiti, but that provides a fresh canvas," he said.

Graham said during the news conference that ex-offenders working within DPW would also aid in the removal efforts.

Teresa Hooker, a member of the community cleanup group Green Team, said the project is a wonderful idea to stop what she called a huge problem. She said taggers sometimes return to a location that the group had cleaned and mark it again.

"No matter how many times we go in, they come back," she said.