Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Now You See It: Kevin Gallagher and his son Daniel (background) helped paint over graffiti on a building along the railroad tracks near the San Jose Unified School District bus yard. The painting duo have also done work to eradicate graffiti in their own Chynoweth-Hayes neighborhood in South San Jose.
City officials, volunteers team up to help remove graffiti and trash
San Jose cracks down on taggers in effort to make city 'cleanest'
By Kate Carter
Nearly 150 volunteers, including Mayor Ron Gonzales, descended on the eastern edge of Willow Glen on Jan. 20, armed with paint brushes, backhoes and weed whackers.
The group painted over graffiti, picked up trash and trimmed back overgrowth as part of an effort to clean up a mile-long corridor, along Highway 87 and the Union Pacific tracks between Alma Street and Curtner Avenue.
Officials from the San Jose Police Department; Union Pacific Railroad; the Departments of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services and Streets and Traffic; the San Jose Conservation Corps; and Caltrans were among volunteers joining the city's anti-graffiti program in the effort to clean up the area and keep it that way.
The city's program has been around for nearly a decade, but has been especially successful in recent years, program supervisor Rick Stanton said. In January 1999, the department conducted a survey of San Jose's streets and counted 71,000 tags, he said. But in January of last year, the survey counted about 35,000. Last week the program began another survey, and Stanton hoped they would count even fewer tags.
He added that most of the city's graffiti occurs in and around downtown San Jose.
Volunteers at the cleanup also removed makeshift shelters created by homeless living along the tracks, who had been asked to move out by Union Pacific police. Stanton said the homeless people had likely moved on to other locations and would probably return. He said he didn't know if the homeless had been referred to homeless assistance programs, but he mentioned that the city has several.
This month's cleanup was the first of its magnitude in the city, Stanton said. Anti-graffiti program officials selected this area of Union Pacific right-of-way, he said, because the building owners must pay the train company $50 to enter its property and remove the tags.
Instead, San Jose is negotiating with Union Pacific for a yearlong agreement, Stanton said, which he hopes could be extended and allow the city to maintain its recent improvements.
San Jose spends $2 million annually on graffiti abatement to cover program staff and equipment, as well as staff from other city departments, Stanton said. The amount San Jose spends on cleaning up graffiti is actually increasing, he said. This has reduced the amount of visible tags because they are removed quickly and diligently.
"Our goal is to have the cleanest large city in the country," Stanton said. "Tagging is the first sign that a neighborhood is starting to go downhill. If you can keep the graffiti away, people realize there's no tolerance in this neighborhood."
Police catch about 250 graffiti taggers each year, only a small fraction of the thousands of taggers out there, Stanton said. Taggers are usually males, between the ages of 14 and 17, seeking "fame," he said, estimating that only 3 percent of tags are gang-related.
"They want people to see their tag when they're driving down the street or walking their dogs," he said. "There are plenty of activities for kids. Most don't know where to find them or have chosen not to find them. They don't have to tag; there are other things to do."
First-offense taggers are required to serve a minimum of 66 hours of graffiti cleanup and pay restitution to their victims. Second-time offenders could serve 132 hours of clean up, lose their driver's licenses for one year and be assigned a spot to keep graffiti-free at their own expense. Further offenses could land a tagger in jail, Stanton said.
"Graffiti taggers aren't artists," Mayor Gonzales said. "They're criminals."
Gonzales said the city cleans up graffiti in public park spaces 24 hours after it's reported. In addition, Stanton said, the anti-graffiti program responds to private calls to its hotline within 72 hours, and is looking for more people interested in receiving paint and equipment to maintain their own neighborhoods.
"Volunteers are our anti-graffiti army," he said. "We don't have enough city staff to do this all ourselves."
Stanton added that to really rid San Jose of all graffiti he would needs "zillions" of volunteers, more city staff and increased education for kids and their parents.
Some kids got an education themselves at the Saturday morning paint-out. About 15 teens from the city's Alma and Fair youth centers picked up trash and wielded paint rollers. Regina Valerio, Alma's senior recreation leader, said the youth centers work with at-risk kids, some of whom have been taggers.
"It's their give-back to the community after what they've done," she said of the volunteer work the kids do with the center.
But Tomy Giang, 14, a participant at Alma Youth Center, got up at 7:30 a.m. to help out, not because he had to give back, but because, he says, "it's fun."
Giang is a freshman at Willow Glen High School and is required to serve 40 hours of community service in order to graduate. He has already clocked 90 hours, well above the minimum, and well on his way to his personal goal of 300 hours.
He's done lots of different types of community service, he says.
"I'll do anything. I like to help the community and make it a better place."
To report graffiti to the anti-graffiti program's hotline, call 408.277.2758. For more information about the program or to become a volunteer, call Stanton at 408.277.3208.
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
