By Emily Randall
Northeast News
Jan. 20, 2010

Plans are in the works to create a unified effort in Historic Northeast to combat graffiti.

Community leaders came together this past Thursday at the North-East branch of the Kansas City Public Library for a meeting of the Physical Barriers Committee of the Northeast Health, Education and Public Safety Consortium. The consortium is a committee of the Northeast Chamber of Commerce. About 20 active neighbors and representatives of organizations including Don Bosco, Mattie Rhodes, Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the city Neighborhoods Preservation Office, Westside Housing and more mulled over a plan of action against grafitti, which centered on hiring a full-time coordinator.

“If we can’t get our act together, the city doesn’t care,” committee leader Leslie Caplan said. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease. [Northeast] can’t be squeaky enough because we’re so fragmented.”

After about two hours of discussion, the group determined their plan had to include both graffiti prevention and abatement aspects. The prevention arm would include education through schools, businesses and neighborhood associations, creating an alternative outlet for graffiti artists, crime prevention through environmental design and regularly scheduled clean-ups that people can volunteer for.

The abatement arm included creating policies for city, commercial, private and abandoned properties; working closely with Main Street Development Corporation on developing policies; creating a graffiti reporting system; and reaching out to those who weren’t represented Thursday, such as those from Northeast’s schools.

The group also discussed looking into using preventative chemicals — clear polymers that Central Patrol Community Interaction Officer James Schriever called “a graffiti artist’s worst nightmare.”

The group determined that they as concerned citizens could not spearhead this effort alone.

“If it’s a committee or something, it usually dissolves in a few months,” Westside Housing Community Organizer Danilo Aguilar noted.

So they decided they would need to go after grant funding to hire a full-time coordinator. Although various nonprofits were represented at the meeting, they decided the effort and the coordinator would have to come from Northeast as a whole — including buy-ins from neighborhood organizations, religious groups, schools and the rest.

“There’s a real feeling of people coming in and spreading truth and light over the neighborhood, and then they’re gone,” said Elaine Joslyn, of NEighborhood Family Care. “The neighborhoods never felt ownership over it.”

The next steps, the group decided, would be to investigate grants, donations and other resources, as well as create a diverse Advisory Board.