Drawing Attention to a Blight : Graffiti: A conference brings together local officials and so-called ‘taggers.’ They look for ways to deal with the problem, which costs taxpayers $427,600 a year to remove.

POMONA — Every night, young people armed with cans of spray-paint scrawl their nicknames, initials and gang slogans in lettering, ranging from the crude to the fancy, on walls, buildings and fences.

Every morning, 11 Pomona city employees set out to spend the day trying to obliterate it.

The monthly cost for graffiti removal is 91 cents for each homeowner in the city and $3.68 for each commercial business.

The graffiti tax, which raises $427,600 a year, pays only for removal of the unsightly blight, city Public Works Director Robert DeLoach said.

In addition, taxpayers finance the Police Department’s graffiti-suppression unit, which employs 16 officers part time to identify and catch the writers--so-called “taggers.”

There is uncalculated cost to the community beyond that, DeLoach said.

“What you don’t see in the budget is the dollar value on the loss of pride and the loss of property values,” he said. “People sometimes say Pomona has a bad image. (Graffiti) adds to the negative influence. It affects whether people buy property or decide to live here.”

The magnitude of the problem prompted a coalition of business and government agencies to sponsor a conference last week that brought together those concerned about graffiti and several youths responsible for it.

Six current, or former, taggers told the audience that they write graffiti out of boredom, peer pressure and a desire for fame. The youths, assembled by gang worker Eddie Banales, director of Family and Community Educational Services, declined to give their names but talked freely about the attractions of graffiti.

One said he started writing because “there was nothing else to do and I (had) seen other people’s names on the wall.”

“It seemed like fun,” another said.

“I wanted to go along with the crowd,” a third boy offered.

Most of the youths said their parents were concerned, but only that they avoid getting caught. And they said the possibility of getting caught does not deter them.

Banales asked the youths what it would take to make them quit.

One boy volunteered that he had already stopped because “too many people were doing it; it got boring.”

A female tagger said she quit because her grades were falling and she did not want to disappoint her father.

But another boy said: “Nothing’s going to stop me. It’s like an addiction.”

And yet another said that although his father allows him and his friends to write on a fence in their back yard, the outlet is inadequate because graffiti writers want the public to see their work. He suggested that the city provide a wall where graffiti could be written legally.

Leonard Duff, assistant superintendent of the Pomona Unified School District, said a city-provided wall--a suggestion that drew mixed reactions at the conference--is one of several ideas that emerged. That and other suggestions are being compiled and will be submitted to the conference sponsors--the city, the school district, the Chamber of Commerce, Pomona Economic Development Corp. and Cal Poly Pomona.

DeLoach said a city-sponsored wall might create more problems than it would solve. He said he is especially concerned that a gang member might put up his name, then a member of a rival gang would cross it out, “and pretty soon you’ve got a rumble.”

More helpful, he said, would be efforts to persuade parents to take graffiti more seriously and to impress upon youngsters the damage they are doing to the community.

Daryl Cummings, graffiti coordinator for the Police Department, said a city ordinance that makes it unlawful for anyone under 18 to buy or possess spray-paint should be strengthened by requiring store owners to keep spray-paint under lock and key.

“The kids aren’t buying the stuff, they’re stealing it,” he maintained.

Cummings said police have identified 518 taggers in Pomona. In the first five months of this year, he said, 111 arrests have been made.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Roberta Schwartz told the conference that “the vast majority of people out there tagging are under 18.”

Schwartz and other speakers said the ages of the offenders, the difficulty in finding witnesses, and staff shortages make it difficult for the justice system to deal with the graffiti problem effectively.

Juvenile Court Referee Gloria Trask said that sometimes a talk with a police officer will persuade a youngster to stop creating graffiti, but other youngsters will keep doing it, even after they spend some time at Juvenile Hall.

“We never know what it will take to get their attention,” she said.

Trask said she usually orders offenders to perform community service. She said she would like to direct them to a program where they would spend their time erasing graffiti, but Pomona does not have such a program.

DeLoach said the city does not put probationers on its graffiti-removal crews because of a concern about legal liability.

The public works official said he believes the city is keeping pace with most of its graffiti. But he said the scrawls tend to build up over the weekends to the point that “Mondays are a bear.”

The city operates a hot line at (714) 620-2265 that anyone can call to report graffiti. City crews survey the major streets daily and use the hot line information to obtain other locations. Despite all that, DeLoach said, the graffiti-erasers are never idle.

“As fast as we take it down,” he said, “they put it up.”