Good News Lake Forest - Update on Graffiti Abatement

On February 1, 2011 the City Council adopted Ordinance No. 225 expanding the City’s array of tools to address graffiti and strengthening the City’s ability to recover the costs of graffiti abatement.

Since 2012, the City has obtained $57,723 in judgements as a result of graffiti-related prosecutions. These cases have typically involved individuals associated with possibly dozens of different graffiti-related incidents. Given the severity of these cases and the monetary damages associated with the City in clean-up costs, the City Attorney’s Office prosecuted these cases.

Over the past six years, the number of graffiti incidents and their associated cleanup costs have declined. From 2010 to 2012, the number of graffiti instances remained above 1,000 annually with removal costs exceeding $100,000 each year. After 2012, the number of graffiti incidents further decreased, as a result, the City’s removal costs also decreased with a net reduction from 2012 to 2016 of $99,731.02, or approximately 89%. During the same period, the number of graffiti reports decreased by 55%, or 706 incidents on an annual basis.

In 2010 our costs were $141,206 and in 2016 they were $12,606. In 2010 we had more than 1,000 incidents and in 2016 we had fewer than 600.

Graffiti remains a problem. If you see graffiti please notify the Police or call the Graffiti Hotline - 949 461 3583. For more information Click Here

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a Town Hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be in May.