SYLMAR : Graffiti Busters May Be Doing Too Good a Job

When Hanna Dyke left Sylmar for Arkansas two months ago, the diminutive anti-graffiti commando had some advice for her former neighbors: Get off your duff and do something.

But not enough people are taking those words to heart, perhaps because Dyke’s Sylmar Graffiti Busters have been too successful, says Charlotte Bedard, who co-founded the group.

“When the people don’t see the graffiti, they think we don’t have graffiti in Sylmar and we don’t need their help,” Bedard said.

“We’re a victim of our own success,” said Tom Weissbarth, president of the group. “That, and the fact that we don’t have Hanna Dyke out there running around 40 hours a week.”

Last year alone, Sylmar Graffiti Busters has obliterated 248,000 square feet of gang tags and assorted urban hieroglyphics in their 27-square-mile community, officials said.

As a result, Sylmar has enjoyed a reputation as one of the least-scrawled-upon areas in the eastern San Fernando Valley.

It may not last. Bedard says she has struggled to get enough volunteers to keep the program as active as it has been, and that chronic money shortages are eroding its ability to do its work.

Since the group was founded in 1988, expenses have swelled from $60,000 a year to about $80,000, Bedard said. The group gets $45,000 from the city as payment for graffiti removal. The rest of its expenses must be covered with cash from local businesses or members’ own pockets.

This year, Bedard estimates that she has shelled out $5,000 of her own money.

Crews of graffiti removers, nearly all assigned to the task by courts after criminal convictions, work Wednesdays through Sundays, Bedard said. Many are juveniles, but plenty of adults find themselves armed with sandblasters or paintbrushes too, she said.

All of the court-assigned workers attend a pair of two-hour courses before hitting the streets in groups of about 10, she said. Juveniles attend with their parents, who are taught to recognize signs of tagging behavior in their children, she said.

All of those activities require supervision, not to mention insurance, transportation and office space.

In addition, there are educational tasks--not just for juveniles and their parents, but police, parole officers and prosecutors, who may not be up on the latest graffiti-busting methods and laws.

“Hanna and I spoke to people from San Jose to San Diego,” Bedard said.

Both Bedard and Weissbarth said they can’t maintain that pace and keep full-time jobs.

“When Hanna and I started, we worked 24 hours a day,” said Bedard, who has since started a telecommunications business. “I don’t have the time to be out there. I give what I can every day. . . . Sometimes it gets discouraging. I feel like I can stay home and clean my own yard and paint my own house, which could use it.”