should go. >> unfortunately, i think so yes. on my college campus it's highly revered. i'm a rock star with my students for this. >> as far as the city is concerned, too, because we take that money and we dump it into the city college and it gets to these guys and then it gets to the community. what i tend to do is when we go to the schools, it's a perfect -- it's a lot of good pr, the principals and whoever is there to write letters to say, hey, this is a great program, please continue and at the end of the session we always have a survey tool that i ask the teachers and administration to fill out. and then at the end of the year when we do the end of our run, i'll submit that packet to our city council and say, look, we have visited these many schools, this is the response that we got from teachers and parents, you know. this is how

many students that we did on this outreach and hit them with the numbers it would be, like, oh, thumbs up, the school wrote us a letter, our da, our district attorney to come see us, she wrote us a letter, so that's how you fund it. >> what he's mentioning is the former chancellor of the los rios college district, the former chancellor is now the statewide chancellor of community colleges, brad ferris who recently retired and now is the state chancellor of community colleges. he me out and saw us, surprised us one day. i felt like one of those dogs that won't stop

rubbing against your leg. he really liked it. >> i don't see why not, we want to definitely express a word. a question over there? >> when i first read the description of the play tonight i was thinking in my mind, well, maybe i can skip it .s i didn't see what i would get out of it but you guys are 100 percent right on (applause) i been tracking gravanis for about 3 or 4 years. i'm not a tagger, a kid got shot, he is

handicapped right now, another one shoplifting, one got stuck, they had to come get him, he was 12 years old. this young kid, it happened -- that's just in the last year and a half i've experienced that. 12 years old to 60 are people right from the streets of oakland and for us in the summer we were thinking about an outreach program for kids and we brought this to the oakland task force and one of the issues was an outreach for kids. and first a group of people, council members and code enforcement thought it was kind of a silly idea but it is very important. if we can catch somebody to have another option, because gravanis does lead, it is a great -- a

gateway to crime. i know taggers who are stealing and doing other crimes. i know people that have $450,000 worth of crime. >> hubris, we call it. >> i do talk to the taggers and stuff. you guys are right on and i am going to try to get oakland to do this kind of stuff. there's plenty of talented people, plenty of rappers in oakland. you guys could go back and brain wash my people to go to the schools and do this program. have you come back. >> reed cameron has been taping this whole thing. >> you guys are 100 percent,

200 percent right on. >> thank you. >> a general question on the budget, the budget item eye. >> we probably spend about $30,000 a year, so one fte what is that, a utility worker? so, you know, that's probably what we spend. >> have you (inaudible). >> are you talking about any of the kids here have experience with gravanis? i've been taking it off for 26 years. >> you know what? as a matter of fact one of our players about a year ago, he actually

was a soldier in iraq, 18, 19, he went to iraq. the deal is he gt busted on a misdemeanor felony for gravanis so the military would not let him go to the military. and so he made a deal with the district attorney and he actually was in our play for a semester, did that community service, paid his 10 grand in restitution and went into the military. so, yes, we did have one experience within the cast at that time. >> any questions? >> i don't know if i need a mic. i want to encourage other cities that want this program

to consider the program, it was fantastic. it was fantastic. i'm wondering if you thought about taking it into high school. >> junior high. >> the thing is we were thinking about that, but my whole thing is planting the seed at elementary school because, you know, when you get 12, 13, you get this attitude and they say, like, when you are 5 years old you develop penalty. for us, we wanted to have that opportunity to catch them young, it plant that seed. so when they do progress from middle school to high school, hopefully it will sprout. i'm not going to mess with no gang, i'm not going to get messed up

with that, gang stuff, you get beat up, get killed. >> i personally think the older kids, junior high, late junior high, high school, like my daughter is in 10th grade. and she'll be in somebody's face. those kids, they kind of already made up their minds. that's one of the things i got out of that. plus we go to middle school and we'll do a show, we started off by going to what was it kit carson middle school and we did the 7th graders one day and the 8th graders the other day and it was, like, 500 students. we were outnumbered when they are watching you, it's easier to make fun and that's kind of how it went. we love the 5th and 6th graders because they eat it up and they want to talk to us.

there's a lot of kids that are not going to do it and there's a bunch of kids that they are going to do it no matter what, but it's those kids in the middle, if we can get it while they're on the fence, i think that's where it's more effective with the 5th and 6th graders. >> this form of outreach for anything else? >> we kind of do in parks and rec. back when i was 19 was parks and rec. as a matter of fact, i wrote that play 15 years ago and it's been sitting in my desk for 15 years until somebody said we got a little bit of money. so somebody wrote the play, sent it to me, it was the 60's version. >> guy who grew up in redding, california. >> i kind of rewrote it, i was 90's version. and so i ran an

anti-gravanis, i hire 14, 15, 16-year-olds and we go out in the weekends to abate gravanis and i floated this idea to my kids, they are interns now, they're 20, i'm old. they wrote the 2000 verse, that lingo. >> we keep asking them, if that doesn't sound right, give me a g-rated version that we can take to the schools. >> the new answers are so great. >> it's like jimi hendrix. never the same way twice. >> a lot of organic happenings back in the 70's.

>> in response to the high school, going after high school, i think that that is a great idea. i remember high school. >> yeah, me too. >> it wasn't that long ago for me and i remember not caring. it's not that i didn't understand the message but it was that i didn't care enough that the message went right over my head and through my ears. elementary school kids don't do that. believe it or not they will pause and they will cry. and middle school. you guys know that. they understand, the message sinks in. i do encourage lots of communities it try and take it to their high schoolers and i don't mind being pointed out and booed off the stage. >> yes, you do. >> that is the risk that you

take. and then the response to the question about whether there has been a higher impact, if we've seen any changes, i've been in the show since the beginning, i missed a couple semesters since starting but when we go back to the schools we have kids coming back to you, i remember you, i remember you, i had a few kids say, yeah, i wanted to write on the desk but i didn't. something as simple as drawing on your desk is gravanis because there are people paid to clean off the desk and now they ain't doing that, the fact that when we go to these schools and when we see these kids they always have answers ready for us as far as the last time they saw us, after the show, oh, yeah, i'm not going to do this. >> every semester. and there's some schools that won't let us come in. it's really strange. oh, no, our kids

don't do that. it's true. >> i've been in the show plenty of times, starting in 06 -- it was 06 -- and i've done this show numerous times. and don't get it twisted, yes, we are in sacramento and i have been staying in the good part of the city, you know what i mean? and three different bad parts of the city, we've gone to, probably, 6 schools in those bad cities and occasionally you get those, sometimes you see those kids that when they are coming into the cafeteria or the gym, multi purpose room, what have you, they are always like talking

the whole time, you know? and still to this day i see like three of those kids from those kids that are not -- what can i say -- they are not that bad any more. they are not that bad. i see them, they are cool, they are not making no bad choices. they remember me. oh, i'm making right choices, i'm making right choices. it makes you feel good that you reached out and you got hold of somebody, somebody that was probably on the wrong path on to the right path, you know what i mean? >> was the play based on characters in real life? >> yeah, some of them are. obviously like ivo, evolution, we wanted to make him the leader because he evolves

throughout the play and teaches the rest of the kids. damage, the antagonist, the joker, crash, officer frank, who speaks frankly, we wanted to do the elementary school but do the confront thing. also, too, you know, the neighbors that unfortunately i'm a code enforcement officer so i have to deal with citing property owners even though they didn't do it. so i get the backlash from the property owners, you know? i've been here 5 times, call the cops. this is what we can do. so definitely those are the characters in our community. >> to give you guys experience how we do this, we can have the guys come out,

hand out the goodies. if you guys can get people, then noel and i can --. >> thank you so much. thank you (applause). >>: hello and good morning. my name is larry -- and i'm chair of the san francisco graffiti advisory board and deputy director of operations, department of public works. welcome to zero graffiti international conference. (applause) this morning you will hear from several great speakers and i hope that you are all ready for a fantastic

conference. there's a lot to get from today. i want to be brief and move things along. mayor ed lee could not be here this morning but he is very excited about this event and prepared a welcome via video. now the honorable mayor of the city and county of san francisco mayor ed lee. >>: hello. i'm mayor ed lee. it is my pleasure to welcome you to san francisco and the first of its kind, zero graffiti international conference. san francisco is proud to be the innovation capital of the world because we believe that finding solutions to graffiti vandalism or to solve any other challenges is driven by how successful the we embrace and encourage innovation. we continuously seek out ways to leverage new technologies,

reduce cost, find efficiencies, and create meaningful public/private order 68 in the cities unification efforts. the thing today, zero graffiti for a beautiful city is one whole world can embrace. i hope that you are inspired today and throughout the conference to exchange ideas and find solutions to improve the quality-of-life in your city. thank you for your dedication and commitment to eradicate graffiti vandalism. keep up the great work and enjoy our world-class city. (applause) >>: next, i'm mayor ed lee -- ( laughter) >>: alright, i'd like to introduce a champion of -- (indiscernible) to take advantage of san

francisco's cutting edge -- to keep the city clean and green. we are delighted to have him here say a few words. (indiscernible) he also was one of our speakers that participated at the first conference of the graffiti advisory board in 2009. currently the president of the board of supervisors, and the supervisor for district 3. president david chiu. >> supervisor chiu: good morning. i am not ed lee. on behalf of the elected

officials of san francisco one walk and you, home of the world champions san francisco giants. the home of innovation. san francisco the place where we spent many years trying to fight graffiti; we have not reached the place where we are at zero graffiti. i spent a lot of time as a neighborhood activist. like many of you, i spent many hours in neighborhood cleanups, using different chemicals to deal with graffiti; as a small business owner person i heard from hundreds of merchants. as a prosecutor i'm glad i

don't recognized any of you. i recognize how difficult it is for the police and judges to prioritize. graffiti needs to be treated seriously. i want to thank those of you who were part of the 2009 program. we have an amazing rewards program; a graffiti advisory board to help us innovate. we feel that the best ideas are in the heads and the brainchilds of people around the world. how many are from california? how many from the east coast? welcome. i hope it's a -- in the west

coast. how many are from the midwest and the south? thank you for coming. how many from canada? welcome to all of you. anyone from across the pond, europe? sir i welcome you to san francisco. i want to thank all of the city staff here lead by -- the department of public works. we know that graffiti impacts every neighborhood. as the city not only does the department of public works spend four million dollars a year but collectively we spend

20 million dollars fighting this crime. we can do better. i look forward to a fruitful conference and hopefully someday stamp out graffiti. thank you very much. (applause) >>: thank you supervisor chiu. the next person i'm going to introduce, he is and original graffiti fighter, past chair of the graffiti advisory board and the main reason you are here. -- international conference was something he wanted to see in

san francisco. mohammed -- has worked in san francisco -- responsible for dozens of community engagement programs, (indiscernible) (indiscernible) he knows every inch of this city as a steward of this beautiful, vibrant city. (indiscernible) strengthening and improving the community with partnership and support. (indiscernible) he was responsible for the first conference in 2009, he is responsible for the ideas - welcome mohammed --

(applause) >>: thank you larry. good morning everyone. how is everyone doing today? i am so excited to join our mayor, david chiu, larry welcoming you to san francisco. (indiscernible) fighting this issue of graffiti in our city. (indiscernible) we have planned this for a while. the issue of graffiti -- not just san francisco but many other cities. all over the world. tackling this problem. let me start by saying we have

a very beautiful city, 49 square miles, second most dense city in america. (indiscernible) we have several neighborhood groups. you will hear a lot of people talk about the issue. the conference will be a great -- (indiscernible) are able to learn more and share ideas and -- in our communities. we also have -- (indiscernible) because of the giants, the 49ers, the other sports. (indiscernible) >>: okay.

it's a partnership. and finding solutions that solve problems by all of us coming together and talking about what we do. as you heard on the public works side of the table, we are responsible for regulating graffiti, enforcing the ordinances, we have a voice -- (indiscernible) we take 30,000 calls at a minimum every year. (indiscernible) it's a huge problem. i have worked for the department for over 12 years -- (indiscernible) a problem growing more and more. (indiscernible)

(indiscernible) -- something we hear ideas on. how many people were here yesterday? another way to connect. that's what this conference is. able to se -- i have new ideas as we tackle the problem of graffiti. within the department, with the help of the graffiti advisory board we have been able to tackle some of the problems in very creative ways. one that i am very proud of is a program called -- program. it's a program where we went to the community, looked for

various artists and asked them to submit their portfolios to us. (indiscernible) -- and then we met with the property owners and matched the artists to the property owners and created murals, over 38 all around the city. putting the artists and the city on the other side (indiscernible) same solution for many of the -- (indiscernible) in the last few months we're seeing now -- murals. spending a lot of time. funding the