Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Graffiti Abatement topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Board of Public Works: graffiti removals down as crews and budget shrink; 9.7M sq ft removed in six months
Summary
The Office of Community Beautification told the committee graffiti-removal locations and square footage have fallen with reduced crews and tighter budgets; contractors removed 9.7 million square feet from requests in the first six months and over 35 million square feet in total (including proactive work), while crews were cut from about 95 to 75.
Paul Roch, director of the Office of Community Beautification at the Board of Public Works, told the Public Works Committee that graffiti-abatement work remains extensive but that capacity has declined following budget cuts.
Roch said the program received approximately 122,000 requests for graffiti abatement in July–December and removed about 9,700,000 square feet of graffiti as a result of those requests. He added that, including proactive contractor work that is not captured in the current MyLA311 system, contractors removed over 35,000,000 square feet.
Roch attributed the decrease in captured work and overall capacity to a combination of a shrinking contractor workforce, higher operating costs and technical limits in the new 311 system that prevent contractors from entering proactive efforts. He told the committee the program has about 20 fewer daily abatement teams than before (down from roughly 95 to 75), and that prevailing-wage changes and higher paint costs have increased contractor expenses.
"We have 20 fewer graffiti abatement crews on the streets than we did prior to July 1," Roch said, and explained that prevailing wages increased and paint costs rose by roughly 20 percent, creating budget pressure.
Roch also said response metrics have slipped: the share of requests completed within 24 hours fell from around 62–65% to 36% this year, and 48-hour completions dropped from about 75% to roughly 50%. He described coordination with the Los Angeles Police Department for crews that cannot safely access some sites and said Building & Safety handles citations to compel private property owners to abate graffiti, a process that can take 30–45 days.
Committee members requested additional breakdowns by council district and by proactive vs. reactive abatement; Roch said contractors are holding proactive logs until the MyLA311 system can record them. No formal action was taken.
