HomeMy WebLinkAboutHandout - Achievements to Date Memo C. y0As
POLICE DEPARTMENT
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MEMORANDUM
DATE: 06/13/2019
TO: Dan Figaro
FROM: Erin Churchill
SUBJECT: Achievements to Date
The Graffiti Abatement Program has three complementary areas of focus; Community
Outreach, Coordination of graffiti cleanup, and Graffiti tracking/reporting. Beginning in
September of 2018 all three areas have been subject to updating and expansion.
Progress/Achievements in Community Outreach
• Updates, and rebranding to a more community focused message have been
applied to the Program's website and outreach materials. With the assistance of
Dave Neubert and Beth Haglund, residents can now access an online form for
reporting graffiti, and download a property release form to request assistance in
cleaning graffiti from their property.
o The website also includes links to the RPD Camera Registration Program
to encourage further community involvement in identifying possible
graffiti vandals.
• Property release forms have been updated to include an option of property
owners to supply matching paint.
• Program pamphlets, and award posters have been updated with correct contact
information, and designed to reflect community engagement in
cleaning/reducing graffiti and moved away from the previous enforcement -
focused design.
• Relationship has been formed with Neighborhood Program coordinator Drey
Hicks, which has led to discussions of the Graffiti Abatement Coordinator
appearing at summer neighborhood meetings.
o Collaboration on service projects to remove graffiti
• Relationship has been formed with Economic Development Specialist Jessie
Kotarski, which has let to greater engagement with the business community,
primarily the Downtown Partnership.
• The Graffiti Abatement Program is officially on Nextdoor. The hope is to
leverage this platform to educate residents on process of graffiti abatement, and
answer any questions or misconceptions within the community as to what
graffiti means to the greater health of the city.
• Participating in the development SeeClickFix citizen request project.
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Addressee Name
Page 2 of 2
Date of Memo
Progress/Achievements in Coordinating Graffiti Cleanup
• Refined the protocol amongst city agencies for reporting graffiti and its
abatement.
• Forged a working partnership with the Renton School District for reporting
graffiti and video evidence of acts of graffiti when present.
• Determined a protocol and identified single point contacts for graffiti abatement
with Century Link, BNSF, PSE, WSDOT, Republic Services, and King County Metro.
• Developed partnerships with PSE and Republic Services to allow volunteers to
clean properties with endorsed products provided at no cost by the companies.
• Took over contacting residents and business from Code Compliance.
Relationship with Code Compliance has developed into a partnership where
residents are referred for citation action if they are non-compliant after 10
business days without reaching out for extension or assistance.
• The Graffiti Abatement Volunteer program was created and launched at the end
of March 2019 with the assistance of Teresa Nichi and Stephanie Hynes.
Progress/Achievements in Graffiti tracking and Departmental Reporting
• Created a robust graffiti database that can easily be filtered for specific tags,
locations, or gang identifiers.
• Created a real time GIS Graffiti map, with the assistance of Gary Del Rosario and
Steven Kincade, which works in unison with the graffiti database to geotag all
graffiti images throughout the city. The GIS map also allows for filtering and
mapping where specific tags are concentrated.
o The GIS Map includes a layer for the RPD Camera Registration Program
which aides in determining if there are resident cameras that may have
caught graffiti activity that has been reported to the program.
• Monthly reports now include detailed breakdowns of graffiti tag information,
rather than just reporting the number of tags identified in a given month.
• Counting of graffiti incidents has been updated to match federal standard of
graffiti reporting.
• A separate monthly report has been established to concentrate on gang graffiti
incidents.
• The end goal of the reporting is to be able to establish an end of year report in
line with other jurisdictions that covers trends over the year, price of graffiti
abatement, and year compared to historic trends.
• Improved leveraging of network of contacts, technologies, and graffiti database
information to assist RPD in the identification of graffiti suspects.
o Currently assisting in two graffiti cases.
o Additional database tracks suspected graffiti vandals, the tags they are
associated with, and case numbers for future referral.
c:\users\echurchill\documents\program overview materials\memo of achievement to date 04.19.docx