Is the City Losing the Fight Against Graffiti?

[Jim O'Bryan]

City Hall is reporting that graffiti is back in Lakewood.

Graffiti has never left, but we need to work together to win the fight against graffiti.

If you see graffiti, please report it.

Done within site of city city cameras, and who knows how many NSA cameras, no video!

Huh?

Another tagger has dropped dime, why all the cameras?

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[Bridget Conant]

Well at least they are equal opportunity taggers.

http://www.cleveland.com/lakewood/index.ssf/2015/07/graffiti_vandals_target_lakewo.html#comments

[Jim O'Bryan]

Bridgett

Old news, lame...

Here is the "Geek'" photo,

OK Lakewood Police, go...



tick, tick, tick, tick, tick...


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[Bridget Conant]

Funny how easily they can be found online.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Funny how easily they can be found online.

Critical thought has left the planet.

Tagging is not art, neither is graffiti, it is a crime.

Which is too bad as some of them are really talented.

Number of police cameras used - 0

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[Lori Allen _]

Jim,

Wow, is the Mayor really thinking of laying off some of our police officers? In my opinion, we need more! Summers appears to be looking for ways to pay all the unnecessary workers and over-paid workers at City Hall. From information gathered through public records there has been a great increase in domestic violence calls to the police department. Many of these calls are repeat offenders, which leads me to the next question: Why was I told by the legal department that Hassing was hired back to handle nuisance properties? I recently requested a copy of the most recent nuisance list from our legal department. The last entry was from the beginning of April, 2015. Many of these domestic violence calls happen at the same address over and over again. Also, incidences occurring at our bars are not being listed as nuisance properties even though there have been three or more occurrences in less than a year.

About the graffiti: Mr. Stein brought this subject up at the council meeting this week, and for once, I agreed with him. I recall one of the council members telling him that the city does not have anything to remove it, but, they would be willing to discuss with citizens what they might like to try to remove it. Hmmmmm, again, no money!

Some residents from Chase and Lake came to the meeting to discuss the re-occurring flooding in their basements. I suggested that the council should NOT approve the mayor's request for his $900,000 fiber-optic system and give the money to help these residents fix their flooding issues. I got the usual smart-ass grin from Mary louise. Yeah, like she really gives a damn. Just what City Hall needs a new play systems to play with, compliments of the Lakewood taxpayers.

[Jim O'Bryan]

About the graffiti: Mr. Stein brought this subject up at the council meeting this week, and for once, I agreed with him. I recall one of the council members telling him that the city does not have anything to remove it, but, they would be willing to discuss with citizens what they might like to try to remove it. Hmmmmm, again, no money!
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David is a good person, we just disagree, he thinks residents should support business, and I feel businesses
need to carry themselves and maybe add to the residential neighborhoods. I am glad that David Stein has
spent time and money in Lakewood. He is wrong on the hospital.

The City will continue to lean out. Mayor Summers is a Republican conservative, deep down, and he wants to see
smaller government. Of course running the hospital out will make us have to cut police, fire and other services.
I can see us going the way of Parma from front yard pick-up to privatizing.

They are afraid to raise taxes, so they get it other ways, closing hospitals, laying off good workers for campaign workers, etc..

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[Lori Allen _]

Over the past few days driving up and down the middle and eastern sections of Detroit along with a smaller portion of Madison, I have documented well over forty separate instances of graffiti (I count each tag as a separate instance). Generally, I agree with Jim's idea that posting pictures generally empowers the vandals more. However, if anyone wants to see the tags for themselves, they can download the attachment below with their locations and go see for themselves.

I encourage everyone to go take a look at these locations and report graffiti to the city as you see it. I feel that the more we complain, the more we will hopefully motivate the city to take action. Many of these tags have been there for quite some time and did not just appear over the past few days. I have sent some of them in before to the city and nothing has been done. Perhaps they are using the tag pictures for screensavers

I also encourage anyone else that sees other graffiti to post the location here on the Deck so the rest of us can also report it to the city. The squeaky wheels get the grease, hopefully!

[Lori Allen _]

Matt Markling first brought the issue of graffiti to the Deck in 2011. Has it gotten any better? You be the judge.

Are our city council members out walking the streets and getting to know the neighbors?

[Lori Allen _]

UPDATE: The city is still not prevailing in the fight against graffiti. Graffiti has remained on some buildings since last August.

The ward councilmen and the at-large councilpeople should be looking out for this stuff. I see it all the time. They get paid to look out for it. I do not.

On a positive note, I will say that graffiti is usually removed relatively quickly from parks, street signs, and the like. However, it remains on buildings and sidewalks the longest. The stuff on the buildings usually looks the worst.

Also take notice of the picture below. This is seen on a building by Lewis and Madison. This appears to be what is known as "roll call".

Iggys roll call.jpg (58.93 KiB) Viewed 3793 times

Also, according to https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/ ... ?ID=200790 :

Gang roll call graffiti contains the core gang members either listed as a series of names or presented as a cluster design. After presenting eight photographs illustrating gang roll call graffiti, the author suggests that gang membership data may be extracted from roll call graffiti.

[Lori Allen _]

This graffiti has been posted here before. This is the graffiti that the city knows about and has known about for at least a month, but has apparently done nothing about. This is all on business, apartment buildings, and vacant buildings, mostly in the 13400 and 13300 blocks of Madison, but also a few on Detroit and elsewhere on Madison.

This is not necessarily a complaint but a call to action. The Mayor's Office and City Hall read the Deck.

[Lori Allen _]

I spoke with a Westshore Enforcement Bureau Officer the other day. He told me that neither WEB nor Lakewood has a gang unit.

I was down in this area of Madison yesterday, and observed what I believe was drug activity around one of the bars and around one of the vacant storefronts.

It is important that the graffiti is covered up or removed quickly so that the gangs and/or taggers get less exposure. I will do an update in a week or two to measure progress on removal of this graffiti.

Most of this is in Ward 3. I would like Mr. Litten to make a statement on this issue and explain what he is doing to combat the graffiti and ensure its rapid removal.

[Lori Allen _]

I just noticed that the fence up at the end of my street has been targeted with graffiti again. This fence was previously vandalized during the Fitzgerald administration. The city knew about it for years and years and into the Summers administration and did nothing. Finally, the owner got a new fence. The city is now aware of the new tagging. Let's measure Summers & Company's ability to remedy it this time.

[Lori Allen _]

UPDATE: more artwork!

What is Summers & Company doing? Close your eyes and what do you see?



If it's not on Wheeeeellllbert (Wilbert) nobody seems to care.

[Lori Allen _]

Not sure if West Side Skates is giving out their stickers or not. However, it needs to be brought under control. Someone is littering the entire city with their stickers. Parking meters, utility poles, you name it. City Hall cannot keep up with removing them.