SB to hire own graffiti team; Los Padrinos could be erased
The council voted tonight to allow the hiring of seven new employees to take over graffiti abatement.
The vote was a touchy subject because the plan could spell the end of Los Padrinos Youth Services, a contractor that has previously been San Bernardino's on-call force to clear away tagging.
The council voted 4-2 to greenlight the hiring plan. Councilmen Dennis Baxter, Tobin Brinker, Chas Kelley and Rikke Van Johnson voted for the move.
Councilwomen Esther Estrada and Wendy McCammack voted no.
Los Padrinos director Max Alonso did not speak at the council meeting. He has previously said that losing the San Bernardino contract could be the end of his organization.
City officials said during the night's discussions that Alonso has planned to retire. SB Now will attempt to contact Alonso during business hours Tuesday for more information.
The council's action allows the Public Services Department to hire six new maintenance workers and a new lead maintenance worker. The hires are expected to cost $637,000 over the first six months of 2009.
Los Padrinos Youth Services has given former offenders a chance to find jobs clearing up graffiti. Carolina Chavez, who spoke in favor of the contractor, said before the council voted that she objected to the plan because people who have worked for Los Padrinos will not be able to work for the city.
"They all applied," she said. "Within a week they all received a decline letter because of their records."
Mayor Pat Morris said there may be some possibility that Los Padrinos could survive as a nonprofit that the city would hire to board up vacant properties. As of tonight, that idea was more of a concept than a plan.
Kelley, who represents the city's Fifth Ward, maintained that Los Padrinos has failed to adequately clean up graffiti. He said vandalism in the downtown area is an embarrassment to the entire city.
"Business provide services and goods, and when they don't provide services and goods efficiently they go out of business," Kelley said.
He added his view that the city wasn't getting its money's worth for the $59,000 per month that Los Padrinos received.
Taking graffiti abatement operations in house will be more costly for San Bernardino than contracting with Los Padrinos. Brinker, who represents the Third Ward, said that the plan will allow San Bernardino officials to have more control over the quality of graffiti removal work.
McCammack opined that the move will not work out. She said she was concerned that San Bernardino may not be able to afford the costs of keeping the new maintenance workers on staff.
She also maintained the new plan abandons the rehabilitation efforts that were part of Los Padrinos' approach.
"I'd rather give it to Los Padrinos, at least they keep people off the street," McCammack said.
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Andrew Edwards. E-mail Andrew here.
Chas is just sore that his little trees died because Los Padrinos couldn't keep wasting hours every week watering them.
Spending more than 100K of the city's $$ on his fave restaurant's landscaping was the dumbest move I've ever seen anyone make. Los Padrinos TOLD Chaz those trees wouldn't survive on ROCKS... Now that they won't keep his fave restaurant's grounds, he wants to cut their contract with the city, eh? It suits his M.O. No kickbacks = No city contract in this city.
Chaz Kelly is a crook, just like Morris
This is the typical greedy politician that should be ran out of town, have criminal charges on him for wasting tax dollars. Then he should owe the city restitution.
First - Louis Bee's comment is entirely inappropriate and lends nothing to any substantive discussion.
That said, how can the city possibly absorb another 1.2 million annually in expenditures? Everyone, including Mr. Kelley, knows that the City is facing the worst fiscal deficit in its history. Revenues are coming in lower than expected for the year, compounding a crisis that has yet to felt completely.
I believe everyone can attest to the fact that graffiti in the City has increased significantly. If the Los Padrinos organization did not meet expectations, I'd be interested in seeing information on how the City's benchmarks for removal were not met. Increased activity does require increased vigilance and at times additional investment. Were these factors considered?
I call upon Mr. Kelley and other members of the council to let the taxpayers of this city know what criteria was used for establishing "Failure", and what was done to work with Los Padrinos to rectify the problem first.
I sincerely hope this isn't about trees at a restaurant.
Sincerely,
Concerned Citizen
Gangs are getting worse in our town because Operation Phoenix has upset the citizens. Innocent people are getting hassled so OF COURSE they're going to scrawl it on the walls. When you put your thumb on society and try to rule us, we get upset. It's not Los Padrinos' fault that the mayor's plan has backfired and caused the gang problem to get worse.
Concerned Citizen doesn't seem too concerned that Chaz Kelly did it for personal reasons and that hen wasted over 100K in the CITY's money on HIS fave restaurant's landscaping. They are trying to distract people from the problem: white collar crime in City Hall.
Councilmember Chas Kelley is a true champion for taxpayers and public safety. That's why he supports REAL action to reduce blight and graffiti in San Bernardino--instead of throwing public money down a rathole on "feel good" social programs that don't produce results.
Chris Jones has no idea what he's talking about. Chaz Kelly wasted over 100K of the city's money on his personal wishes. There's no graffiti at Castaways. I checked. He's no hero to anyone but his pocketbook. He thinks he's special because he's on the city council. He thinks we won't make him pay the city back. Oh, we will. The only hero here is the reporter for actually covering this story.
The Los Padrinos graffit abatement approach was a failure. Anyone who drives around San Bernardino knows that graffiti is NOT being cleaned up effectively. Thanks to Councilman Kelley, San Bernardino taxpayers WON'T be shelling out $59,000 a month any longer for a program that clearly doesn't work.
Right you are Chris Jones, it wont cost $59,000 per month, it will cost the City over $100,000 per month! That doesn't include start-up cost and materials. Do the math. Tell Mr. Kelly to put the grafitti contract out to bid a let the "free market" have a chance. This is not the time to grow the government.
Chris Jones, Los Padrinos was doing a fine job. They did as they were told. Maybe if they weren't busy doing personal projects for vindictive councilmembers, they would have been able to be even better than what they were. Los Padrinos did 2 things: clean up graffiti and get gangmenbers out of the game to prevent graffiti.
Los Padrinos was doing fine on graffiti abatement until the Council cut back from 5 crews to 3 crews.....they also were keeping those graffiti "artists" off the streets.....
Now all they will be back on the streets without mentoring from the Los Padrinos supervisors, and the taxpayers will be paying more to the city who can't even keep the potholes filled and the street lights lit.
Yeah, you go Chas! You won't agree to the subpoenas to find out what is going on with Operation Phoenix but you will spearhead the movement to get rid of Los Padrinos. Keep up the good work! HA HA!
Graffiti that isn't reported may be overlooked.
There are hundreds of miles of streets and freeways to monitor throughout San Bernardino, and no small organization can cover all those streets to scan for graffiti on a daily basis. Perhaps the city's new task force of seven people will magically find and remove all this graffiti. Graffiti can't be cleaned up unless it's reported. Maybe city animal control will remove that stray dog from your yard, even though you didn't call them. Maybe the police will get that burglar out of your house, even though you didn't call the police.
As a business owner, I have closely watched all the signs and buildings in my area for years, and Los Padrinos has always responded the same day or next to clean up graffiti.
Many of those commenting here are individuals who drive by some graffiti and say, "Look, Los Padrinos is not doing their job!" without bothering to report the graffiti. The real watchdogs of the city are business owners such as myself who actually watch for and report every single instance of graffiti in our respective areas.
Let's put this new magical graffiti task force to the test beginning January 1st. Every time anyone sees graffiti, take a digital picture of it and email it to Chas Kelly.
Let's all see how fast the graffiti disappears. Probably not as fast as Chas Kelly disappears from any future newspaper articles extolling the merits of his new graffiti removal system.