Medlock Place Historic District And see ye not yon braid, braid road, that lies across the lily leven? That is the Path of Wickedness, though some call it the Road to Heaven. - Thomas the Rhymer   City Serious About Eliminating Graffiti July 22, 2008 The last weeks have seen a new rash of graffiti in our neighborhood. These are not the acts of artistic youth. Rather, graffiti is a visual sign of two very disturbing things, things any property owner in Medlock Place should be concerned about. First, graffiti is an announcement that a gang or individual is claiming your property as theirs. If you want to dispute that, remove the graffiti as soon as possible. Removing it says you like your property and aim to keep it. Second, graffiti is a way for vandals, thieves, and drug dealers to communicate with other criminals. If you don't want these criminals operating in your neighborhood the first thing to do is remove the graffiti. Get rid of graffiti as fast as possible. Paint over it yourself or call the Graffiti Hotline at 602-495-7014. The City's Graffiti Buster's team is very busy all over the Valley so doing it yourself is the fastest way to keep the gangs and drug dealers from Medlock Place. Fresh Graffiti: July 21 in the alley behind the dry cleaners and Metro Retro on Central Avenue, apparently a seasonally popular place to mark territory and advertise illicit drug availability. The following article is from Vice Mayor Peggy Neely. She wants us to know the City is serious about anti-graffiti efforts and that you can help make a big difference in controlling crime in our neighborhood. . . . Not only is graffiti visual blight, it is also costly to residents and taxpayers alike. In the last several months, the city has implemented a number of measures to help wipe out this ugly and destructive crime. Phoenix’s Neighborhood Services Department (NSD) Graffiti Busters team cleaned 63,723 sites tagged with graffiti in the 2006-07 fiscal year, a 32-percent increase from the sites cleaned in 2005-06. Even better, the city’s 14 full-time graffiti busters are on track to remove graffiti from 90,000 sites this year. Police are also tough on taggers, arresting an average of 40 vandals each month and devoting three full-time detectives to identify and apprehend these criminals. Moreover, fines recently increased for juveniles convicted of graffiti, bringing the maximum fine up to $1,800. Despite the progress that has been made in wiping out graffiti, you remain one of the most powerful weapons in our war against graffiti. Phoenix Police has a reward hotline residents can call to report taggers, awarding up to $250 for reporting a graffiti crime. Since this program’s inception, more than $175,000 has been handed out in graffiti reward funds. NSD also has a free paint and clean-up tool-lending program that gives residents the resources to erase the traces of graffiti in their communities. The bottom line is, the more the city and Phoenix residents work together to preserve our communities’ beauty and character, the less we will see unsightly and disturbing graffiti degrading our neighborhoods. Vice Mayor Peggy Neely represents Phoenix City Council District 2. If you have questions about this or any other topic, you can reach her office at council.district.2@phoenix.gov or 602-262-7445. From the February 2008 issue of Neighborhood News, Phoenix Neighborhood Services Department