Graffiti Busters
The BHNA board, the Graffiti Busters volunteers, and your neighbors all thank you very much for helping to preserve the charm and safety of our neighborhood by promptly removing tags you find on your property and reporting those you see on public facilities in the neighborhood!
What You Can Do
You can help clean up our neighborhood, reduce crime, and demonstrate neighborhood pride.
There are proven links between graffiti and increased crime in a neighborhood. When graffiti and tagging appears and is not removed, often more crime and gang activity follows. It appears to criminals that residents don't care about their neighborhood and that makes it an easy target.
Addressing the tagging epidemic is just one way we can help improve the safety and livability in our neighborhood. Your involvement IS significant:
Report the location of tags and graffiti when you see them.
Volunteer to clean up or paint over tags. We have clean-up kits available.
Call 9-1-1 if you witness tagging in progress.
Pay your voluntary annual membership dues.
Donate supplies to refill the clean-up kits.
“YOU’VE BEEN TAGGED!” PROCESS
Report tags to bhna.506.blockwatch@gmail.com
The Problems
Tags and graffiti left on private property detract from the neighborhood, attract additional tagging to these sites and neighboring properties, and create a large backlog of unsightly tags. They are also illegal.
These tags are found on buildings and fences; signs and light poles; retaining walls and sidewalks to the building; landscaping rocks, commercial dumpsters, residential trash, recycling, and yard waste bins; parking lots; etc.
An accumulation of tags on private property contributes to higher crime levels in our neighborhood including car prowls, residential break-ins, and residential and commercial burglaries.
Leaving tags on ones property demonstrates a lack of respect and concern for one’s neighbors and the neighborhood in general.
The Goals
Involve more businesses, property owners, and tenants to address the tagging problem in the Bigelow Highlands Neighborhood.
Educate neighborhood residents and businesses about the benefits of promptly removing tags on private property.
Inform businesses and residents that their private property has been tagged and options to quickly address the problem.
Help enforce the City of Olympia’s Anti-Graffiti Ordinance.
Reduce crimes of all kinds in the Bigelow Highlands Neighborhood.
Important Facts
Graffiti Busters volunteers spent 1,400 hours in 2012 cleaning up a huge backlog and new inventory of tags on public facilities and properties in the Bigelow Highlands Neighborhood! They also spent considerable additional time encouraging businesses and residential property owners and tenants to remove tags on their properties.
Graffiti Busters remove tags from public facilities and properties. These include Bigelow Park, traffic signs and signals, utility poles, pedestals and cabinets for various utilities, etc.
Graffiti Busters volunteers do not remove tags from private property, including trash, recycling and yard waste bins. Those are the responsibility of the owners and tenants.
The Process
Involve and educate
Provide information and updates at the regular Neighborhood Association Meetings and annual picnic
Include regular articles in the BHNA Newsletter
Volunteers distribute handout cards to the public they encounter when out cleaning tags
Inform when tags are found on private property
Report tags found on private property to our e-mail address (bhnagraffiti@gmail.com) with the specific location and a couple photos (must be taken from public street or sidewalk - no trespassing).
Send out “You’ve Been Tagged!” postcards to private properties which have been tagged with tags location/description and process information. Ask owner or tenant to please email us when their tag is removed.
“You’ve Been Tagged!” card and photographs are also scanned and e-mailed to all BHNA board members and the Olympia Police Department graffiti abatement coordinator.
Wait 4 weeks from the date the card was mailed for the owner or tenant to remove the tags.
Those notified of tags on their property can refer to the city’s Web site for tips about how to - and how not to - remove tags from the property.
Refer and enforce
Tags that remain on private property after notification and the waiting period can be referred to the City of Olympia Code Enforcement Officer for official action.