Join Your Neighbors to help fight graffiti in Bowmanville! (11/20/2010 BCO e-mail Community Notice)

November 20, 2010

Join Your Neighbors to help fight graffiti in Bowmanville!

THIS SUNDAY, November 21st

Meet at 2:30pm outside of Leadway Café, 5233 N. Damen Avenue

Dress warm, bring yourself, a friend, a pen, a clipboard, and your cell phone if you have one.

We are organizing an event with neighbors to walk around Bowmanville and document all current instances of graffiti in our neighborhood. We will meet outside of Leadway Café to start the ‘sweep’ at 2:30pm on Sunday November 21. We will divide into groups of 3 or more people each, to canvass the neighborhood and collect information on all graffiti across Bowmanville. We will then meet back at Leadway Café at 4pm for drinks and a ‘call 311 party’ where we will make city service requests for removal of graffiti at each location we have identified. A consolidated list will also be created that will be passed on to the Alderman’s office and 20th District Police liaisons to ask for their help in ensuring a swift response and follow up to the service requests.

The Bowmanville Community Organization (BCO) is initiating this ‘Graffiti Sweep’ in an effort to get all instances of graffiti in our neighborhood identified, logged with the city, and cleaned up. The intent of this effort is to do a big push to get graffiti cleaned up in Bowmanville and then encourage a ‘zero tolerance’ mindset among residents regarding graffiti, where ALL instances of it are reported by neighbors for cleanup as quickly as possible. Each of us has to do our part to make this work. Others will not do it for us.

This event is in response to what seems to many residents to be an increase in graffiti within our community in recent months and in particular in recent weeks. It is not totally clear if there is actually an increase in graffiti or simply a slower response time within city services to remove it. Regardless, the sense amongst many residents is that there is a large amount of visible graffiti in Bowmanville and the problem is a recurring one that seems to be getting worse rather than better. This problem has also escalated recently to include targeted graffiti and vandalism of particular residences within our community that seem to be directed at intimidating individuals or families.

This kind of intimidation is very upsetting, and totally unacceptable. We need to demonstrate as a community that we will not tolerate it. The best way we can do that is by being out on the streets ourselves looking out for each other and calling the police and alderman’s office whenever something is amiss. The more vocal we are, the more attention will be paid to these issues. We hope that an active community organization, strong block clubs, and engaged neighbors who are focused on supporting one another will lead to increased security of individuals and property in Bowmanville. Immediate reporting and cleanup of graffiti is one way to help reduce the proliferation of this type of activity and encourage those doing it to move their activities elsewhere.

Even if you can’t join us on Sunday, you can do your part to report graffiti as you observe it.

You can report it online at: https://servicerequest.cityofchicago.org/web_intake_chic/Controller?op=reset

Or by calling 311 anytime.

To report graffiti, you need to know:

• The closest physical street address for the location
• a description of where at that address (dumpster, phone poll, tree, sidewalk, etc.)
• an indication of if the graffiti is higher than 6ft off the ground
• what type of surface the graffiti is on (metal, unpainted brick, etc)
• You will also be asked to provide your name and contact information

If you have any questions about Sunday’s event or how to get a block club going on your street, please contact membership@bcochicago.org or call the BCO Hotline at 1-866-837-1006.

We hope to see a good number of our neighbors out Sunday for this walk around the neighborhood.

Please also don’t forget to mark your calendars for the next CAPS meeting for our area – Wednesday, December 8^th, 7pm @ St. Gregory Bingo Hall, 1609 W. Gregory.

Thanks in advance for your support.

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1-866-837-1006