Keep Dallas Beautiful gets props!
Looks like the Dallas Graffiti Wipeout Team wiped out all rivals this year in Keep America Beautiful’s Graffiti Prevention Competition. The Big D team took top honors for the division of Communities Greater than 300K Population and with that came a cash award of $1000, a plaque, prized and “a FlashCAM-880 Wireless graffiti deterrent system manufactured by Q-Star Technology and valued at nearly $6,000.” I wonder what that is.
The following is the team’s ‘bio’ from the Graffiti Hurts website, which provides community resources and educational tools as well as promotes the best practices for graffiti prevention:
Keep Dallas Beautiful, Dallas, TX
From 2004 to 2005, Dallas received over 1,700 graffiti complaints and spent more than $220,000 to clean up defaced property. And yet the City had no comprehensive graffiti prevention program in place. A handful of residents, city employees, and an elected official got the ball rolling. From there, a coalition of neighborhood groups, city services, and Keep Dallas Beautiful was organized.
The coalition set out to achieve three goals: create a new city program targeting graffiti vandalism, seek $250,000 in funding to operate the program, and organize a citywide paint out called Graffiti Wipe Out 2006. They also designated a single contact in the city for graffiti, wrote a new anti-graffiti ordinance, and established a database to track vandalized sites and volunteers. Finally, better coordination between prosecutors, the district attorney’s office, and the City of Dallas was established.
The Graffiti Wipe Outs drew 1,500 volunteers to clean up over 200 graffiti sites and cover over 50,000 square feet of graffiti. These events were featured on the Dallas Morning news, ABC, NBC, Fox, and Telemundo. Graffiti education also made its way into nine schools. And today, the City Council is considering a $175,000 budget to operate the new program, graffiti has been reduced, and volunteers are continuing to wipe out graffiti.
Contact: Larry Lankford - 972 852-2789 - larry@ecophones.com
Cecile Carson - 940-230-6035 - cecilecarson@netscape.net
Congratulations team. You truly are committed to the betterment of this city and a shining star in my eyes.
