five neighborhoods accounted for 46 percent of the graffiti vandalism observed in 2012. even though i showed you in that last slide that downtown is decreasing, it still is one of our most significant neighborhoods as far as graffiti. queen mary park. those 5 neighborhoods within the exception of one, have remained fairly consistent from the beginning of the program. although the percentage of how much graffiti they have has gone down. what we're finding, too, is that while the reduction in the graffiti over all was very minimal this year, we saw huge swings in the amount of graffiti vandalism by neighborhood. so the gardineau neighborhood in 2011 had a 77 percent decrease, we saw a 200 percent increase in the neighborhood. that is telling me these are the priority neighborhoods through this year where i have to find out what's going on in those neighborhoods in terms of what we can be doing to address the programming needs of those communities. 7 neighborhoods accounted for 59 percent of the graffiti, this is visually showing you how most of the graffiti continues for us

five neighborhoods accounted for 46 percent of the graffiti vandalism observed in 2012. even though i showed you in that last slide that downtown is decreasing, it still is one of our most significant neighborhoods as far as graffiti. queen mary park. those 5 neighborhoods within the exception of one, have remained fairly consistent from the beginning of the program. although the percentage of how much graffiti they have has gone down. what we're finding, too, is that while the reduction in the graffiti over all was very minimal this year, we saw huge swings in the amount of graffiti vandalism by

edmonton's method for auditing graffiti vandalism is unbiased and effective as far as we've been able to determine. we use the results to work with the edmonton police service to determine our other services. the graffiti index and intensity index allow for specific locations within the neighborhood. we found we had significant results over the first year, in terms of the decrease 42.7 percent and while we have leveled off this year, we are confident that by analyzing the neighborhood data we will be able to make strong changes to our programs to be able to effectively decrease that number again. five neighborhoods accounted for 46 percent of the graffiti vandalism, compared to 60, 2011, 10 taggers responsible for 40 percent of the graffiti, 88 percent of the graffiti was small or extra small and 90 percent of it is text only. 71 percent was on private property. so that's basically the graffiti audit in a nutshell. but i always like to show this slide because nothing speaks better than a picture whether you are doing, how you are actually doing. and this is a tag that was created out

graffiti is a property vandalism crime. information we share from our audits are shared with bylaw and police and affect our enforcement and programming efforts. so what we're doing is taking the information that we gather from our audits and we're changing our programming accordingly. so i am able to track what's going on in each neighborhood to determine where i need to deploy my graffiti removal van, where i need to put my wipe out program, where i need to maybe come up with a mural, where i need to work with the arts council, whether i want to or not, pardon my expression, on free walls, which i don't agree with. but they have been very helpful in us really monitoring and having some proof at city effectiveness because somebody asked me in the other presentation, you've got all these programs, you've got clean up programs, how much are you spending on your program? we're spending a million dollars a year and everybody is saying, well, you know, how do you justify where you are putting those dollars? and i'm justifying p

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,

graffiti is a property vandalism crime. information we share from our audits are shared with bylaw and police and affect our enforcement and programming efforts. so what we're doing is taking the information that we gather from our audits and we're changing our programming accordingly. so i am able to track what's going on in each neighborhood to determine where i need to deploy my graffiti removal van, where i need to put my wipe out program, where i need to maybe

or to add on to cases if you do find a graffiti vandal. so, this is for randy campbell. thanks. (applause) >> good news. rebecca delgado is in the house. rebecca, would you like to come up and say a few words about your group at the academy of arts? >> hello, everybody. thank you very, very much. first of all, i would like to say my name is rebecca delgado and i'm a board member of the graffiti advisory as well as a volunteer for dpw. i've been a volunteer with dpw for about 10 years and a board member for about sick years. and i am actually here to nominate -- oh, before i say that, i wanted to thank all of you, by the way, for being here today for joining the conference. i'd like to thank all the people, all the organizations responsible for putting together the international conference. and thank you for visiting our city. i hope you had a great time while you're here and you will continue to explore the city this weekend. you are very lucky because we have a great, great weather. it was winter not too long ago. i think the last 24 hour

my experience with graffiti vandals is that they are actually quite smart and adaptable. if they know that the graffiti on the sidewalk is staying because something has changed their responsibility or accountability, they will target your sidewalks. what i would say is don't wait for people to report it. because they may not know that it's not permission. they may not know they have a right to report t. they may not want to upset their neighbors, their fellow business people. if you see it, by law enforcement or code enforcement officer, city staff, committee member, change the culture. if the graffiti starts showing up on your light poles you're not used to paying attention to that, they will know that, the graffiti stays there, they will target your light polls. we went from zero on light polls in van kao to hundreds and hundreds. 85% of those tags were done by one person. poles * >> [speaker not understood]. >> of course. i'm going to ask you to stand up first and then you add to it, okay. >> okay. in oakland we're getting sidewalk stuff. and word on the street, we don'

so don't ignore the fact there's stuff out there for the graffiti vandal because that can be of huge use to you. meetings, we hold a monthly task force meeting and our task force meeting pretty much covers everything from santa barbara down to san diego is our main group we have a task force meeting with. we share ideas, it's evolved over the years, become more formal. now each time we have a meeting we try to do some new training or talk about the technology available, i will talk about the technology in my class this afternoon. it's really good because we document it because when you go to court, you can show training on a monthly basis. conferences, i can't tell you how excited i am these are happening. only in the last two or three years have these major conferences come about. the one up in canada, they were a great group of conferences and other people started to pick up on this. when i became an officer dealing with gravanis in 1991, there were no conferences and there was virtually no interest. as dr. spicer mentioned, every time it got good, i foupld myself out of a job. i w

it goes through the graffiti department primarily because we do engage past graffiti vandals who are now legal and are doing artwork. so, in vancouver there is no active graffiti tag names, crew name used in our murals. we've come up with a fairly loose guideline which is being defined by a new graffiti programmer, program coordinator david over there. and they're coming up with some parameters so that the city can work with people that come from graffiti so that there is still some incentive for them to become artistic, to go into doing murals and other art. use their style, use that medium that they enjoy. but if they were to use active graffiti tax or names, we know from our experience of having 200 murals in vancouver it's going to attract graffiti. it's very likely going to have a negative effect on the artwork itself. so, we are building parameters around that and trying to work with the subculture, trying to work with those artists, but also understand graffiti is graffiti. our by law in vancouver states that even if you give an artist permission to put up graffiti on your wall

and lastly i would say, when it comes to graffiti and vandalism. i would not say it's totally not there. it happened two years ago when the gate was closed at night time. it had nothing to do with the fact that the gates were open. when the gates were open and more families are in the yard playing, it sent a strong message to the neighborhood, especially the teenagers. hey, this is a community playground and let's respect the property. and in fact they have. and cannot be any happier to see that. the facility is being used to the fullest. lastly, i wanted to say you know i am hoping that more principals can be convinced. because i know i would like to see that they can open the gates and open the minds to this concept. because i have been trying hard myself. hey, open the playground, you see less graffiti and vandalism. >> thank you for being here, i have a couple of questions. and if committee members have questions, press the request to speak. several years ago when i saw this on the other side, board of education. there was a lot of resistance o

encouraging people to join graffiti watch and get the supplies and training needed to help fight graffiti vandalism in your own neighborhood. dpw's watch is a partnership to keep graffiti off our streets and sidewalks and parks for a safer and cleaner san francisco. graffiti watch empowers individuals or groups to take ownership of a heavily tagged four-blog area in their neighborhood and remove graffiti themselves from public property such as poles, mail bax, trash receptacles and other furniture and in return dpw provides the training and tools. as we all now at rec and park removing graffiti quickly ideally within 24 hours is a proven fact that the faster they are painted over it's less likely that the vandals can return. those interested can visit dpw's website and download an application and we're very grateful for our partners at dpw for leading the effort to keep our city clean. this issue of golf magazine -- do you read that mr. president? >> it's new, but i will look it up. >> it features your rec and park features wayne; he is the winner of the 2013 herb gravis business person of the year

graffiti on the sidewalks. one point i haven't heard talked in this conference is an issue that has a lot to do with ghosting is that vandals are coming up with new concoctions of paints that they use to make it harder to take out. so, i say that graffiti abatement is a combination of science and alchemy. because every time you get to a place, a small percentage you find pigments that's like from another world almost. but just to finalize, and i understand what larry was answering. it makes sense that you cannot hold property owners liable to graffiti ghosting. but is this a point of policy that maybe could look forward? other municipalities, that whenever there is ghosting, you actually encouraging more vandalism because that is an etch that is going to stay -- my grandchildren might still see it. so, what i'm saying is i think dpw does a great job on giving referrals on contractors, by the way, and a wealth of information about products. but the bottom line is that property owner is only going to spend so much money over and over and over and get to a point that it's just too much money. so, ghosting i think to me is dear

help bring home some of the key points about how graffiti really is a gateway crime and how graffiti vandals escalate. and that's one, if any message i can take home, that's what i really want to so i thank you for that. omaha, nebraska. >> omaha, nebraska. you have one up there? >> i'm all done. >> do you have a question you wanted to ask? >> [speaker not understood]. >> we'll get to the sales pitches, okay. [laughter] >> okay. anybody else here, let me come over here because we're going to start wrapping this up pretty soon because we have some awards we're going to give out. okay. i'm going to hold the mic and i'll determine how quick it's going to be, okay. [laughter] >> just to compliment the city of san francisco. i was on -- i took the muni in yesterday. and when i was on the bus in the morning, there is a repetitive announcement that went out that said, if you see graffiti, report it. and here's the phone number. it went out, i believe in three languages. that's wonderful. i think that's more key than if you hit the raid yoxtion and all that sort of media thing and grab that piece. *