rialtonow

Let me start this post with its been worse, a lot worse. But is that any reason to not want it to still improve.

Graffiti like this one above has been on this wall in this field for over a year now. Multiple calls to the Graffiti Hotline with no avail. Yet the opposite wall same field they removed the graffiti tag after a year of calls.

The graffiti is getting so bad that small businesses are getting tagged up on their store fronts on Foothill Blvd and it’s just staying there. Sorry but I would not feel safe if I was looking to patronize a business and saw that. I would choose to spent my money else where and I do (but that’s for another day).

We are the ones that must stand against the filth of society taking hold of our communities. With so many local elections happening in the next year we need to lean on our elected officials to put up or ………… I know budgets are tight and money is thin but we cannot allow our community to slip away into the darkness because of a poor economy. Let me highlight a recent situation where a community member (me) and a local elected official worked together to clean up a major blight in a highly visible portion of our city:

This is what the construction lot at the corner of Ayala and the 210 Freeway looked like. So as people traveling down the 210 passed Ayala and approached Riverside Ave this is what they saw. This may have been their first impression of Rialto. What kind of message did this send. Ill tell you it wasnt good. I brought this up at a Area Command Meeting in Early 2011 for Area 1 a meeting attended by council member Joe Baca Jr. Both Mr. Baca Jr. and Lt. Thompson of the Rialto PD said this would be addressed. Months and months go by nothing. So I find out that the lot in question was jointly owned the City of Rialto leased a portion to Atkinson Construction Services and a smaller part was owned by Caltrans. Did you know we have a council member that sits on the Caltrans board? Council Woman Deborah Robertson sits on thier board and had been assisting me on getting the graffiti removed in a more timely fashion from freeway walls and direction signs.

I contacted Mrs. Robertson and informed her of the situation and included pictures http://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=216882198324244 and she made a trip to see the lot for her own eyes she was appalled. Mrs. Robertson and the Public Works director began the eviction process for Atkinson and directed Caltrans to clean up their portion. The removed all “K” rails and steel tubes and other debris that gangs were using as blank canvases. This is what it looks like now :

Now a retailer can see himself developing this lot, people can drive by and not feel like they need to stop at another Starbucks and we can know the Mrs. Robertson stepped up to the plate and came through when others let us down.

Below are the different options open to you to report graffiti:

http://www.rialtoca.gov/publicworks_graffiti_report.php – Report Online

909-820-2670 – Graffiti Hotline, Program this number into your cell phone and call on graffiti right when you see it if you wait you will forget.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rid-Rialto-of-Graffitti/216882198324244?sk=wall – Facebook page dedicated to highlighting the lapses in response.