# Services Committee - February 5, 2008 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Committee · February 5, 2008 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/360 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/360?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2008-02-05 - **Body**: Committee - **Last revised**: February 2, 2026 - **Length**: 4,527 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Services Committee convened on February 5, 2008, at 1:00 PM with Mr. Ellinger presiding as the meeting chair. The committee addressed two informational agenda items during the session, focusing on municipal service matters affecting the community. The meeting featured presentations on graffiti issues and the Zandale Storm Drainage Ditch, both handled as informational items without requiring formal committee action. One motion was recorded during the proceedings, while no public comments were received from community members during the designated public comment period. Both agenda items were treated as informational presentations, allowing committee members to receive updates and discuss these municipal service topics without taking binding votes on policy changes or recommendations. The meeting provided a forum for committee members to stay informed about ongoing service-related matters within their jurisdiction. ## Attendance The Committee meeting on February 5, 2008 had nine members present and two members absent. **Present:** • Ellinger • Myers • Blues • DeCamp • Beard • McChord • Blevins • Henson • Lane **Absent:** • Crosbie • James **Late:** None ## Votes and Decisions The committee took one formal vote during the February 5, 2008 meeting. **Motion on Graffiti Ordinance Development** CM Lane made a motion for the Department of Law to draft a graffiti ordinance and submit it back to the committee for review. The motion was seconded by CM DeCamp. The motion passed unanimously with a vote of 9-0-0 (9 ayes, 0 nays, 0 abstentions). **Roll Call Vote:** - **Voting Yes (9):** Ellinger, Myers, Blues, DeCamp, Beard, McChord, Blevins, Henson, Lane - **Voting No:** None - **Abstaining:** None This vote directs city legal staff to prepare draft legislation addressing graffiti issues for the committee's future consideration and review. ## Graffiti Officer Keith D. Gaines presented information on the growing graffiti problem in the city and discussed potential solutions to address the issue. The presentation covered the escalating costs associated with graffiti removal and outlined proposed ordinance recommendations to combat the problem. During the discussion, several committee members participated in the conversation about graffiti enforcement and prevention strategies. CM Blevins, CM Beard, CM Henson, and CM DeCamp engaged with Officer Gaines regarding various aspects of the graffiti issue. Jerry Hancock also contributed to the discussion. Officer Gaines detailed the financial impact of graffiti on the city, explaining the resources required for cleanup and removal efforts. The presentation included proposed ordinance changes that could strengthen the city's ability to address graffiti vandalism and hold perpetrators accountable. The committee members raised questions and concerns about implementation of potential ordinance changes and discussed various enforcement mechanisms. The conversation explored different approaches to graffiti prevention and the effectiveness of current removal procedures. This agenda item was informational in nature, with no formal action taken by the committee. The discussion served to educate committee members about the scope of the graffiti problem and potential policy solutions that could be considered in future meetings. ## Zandale Storm Drainage Ditch Council Member Beard brought forward concerns regarding the Zandale storm drainage ditch during the committee meeting. The discussion centered on multiple issues affecting the ditch, including safety hazards and pollution problems that have been identified in the area. CM Beard outlined the various concerns that have been raised about the current state of the Zandale ditch. The discussion included consideration of potential solutions to address these ongoing issues, with particular attention given to the possibility of covering the ditch as a remedial measure. Mr. Bennett and CM Blevins participated in the discussion, contributing to the dialogue about the ditch's current condition and potential approaches for addressing the identified problems. The conversation examined both the safety implications for the surrounding community and the environmental concerns related to pollution in the drainage system. The agenda item served as an informational discussion, allowing committee members to review the situation and consider various options for addressing the Zandale ditch issues. No formal action was taken during this meeting, but the discussion provided a foundation for understanding the scope of concerns and potential solutions that may need to be pursued in future meetings. The committee's examination of the Zandale storm drainage ditch reflects ongoing municipal infrastructure concerns and the need to balance safety, environmental, and practical considerations when addressing drainage system issues within the community. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (9-0): Motion for the Dept. of Law to draft a graffiti ordinance and submit back to the committee for review --- ## Full transcript Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of you for being here today. And it was put in the committee by Mr. Maloney, so I will go ahead and take care of that issue. And we have Officer Keith Gaines, so in the packet, Officer Gaines has provided some ordinance recommendations and some draft language and just has some background information. Officer Gaines, if you would come, I guess, give some of the background information and then go through what you have provided for us in the packet. And then also you have some examples of what other cities are doing, too. I do. Thank you. Okay, a little bit of background information. I actually started research on graffiti in November of probably 2006 on the recommendation of actually Lisa Johnson, who is here in the audience, a neighborhood association president for Aylesford. I was in the process of researching that when Councilman Maloney came to me and asked if I could help with the assistance of him to further research a possible ordinance and laws on graffiti removal, abatement, and those type of things. The packet that you have, like I said, it has some background on it. Basically, graffiti is becoming kind of a national problem. About $12 billion a year nationally is spent on graffiti removal. Lexington, the figures for 2007 calendar year through the Parks Department, which is the only figure I have on what it's taken to remove graffiti, it's about $13,000 that was spent, the 2007 calendar year, just for the Parks Department and their areas that they take responsibility for removing. One of the things in the ordinance that this has is a sale or prohibits the sale of graffiti implements and possession of graffiti implements. And what that basically does is for juveniles or any adult that would be out in areas such as parks, city-owned property, private property without the consent of owners, that makes it illegal to possess certain graffiti implements. And we have a definition of what graffiti is. It's a clearly defined definition of graffiti implements. And this is following what most other cities and a lot of ordinances that our research have kind of taken and adopted. The kind of the basics of it is they do the definition. We do some tools and implements. And then if a person is caught not specifically doing graffiti, because that's kind of sometimes a harder thing, but if they're caught in those areas, then they have these specific implements. That would become an offense. And they would be fined for that or cited and go through the court system. Along with this, we really, it's kind of the start of what needs to be a comprehensive program. And what I mean by that is this is just one of the tools in a lot of the other cities' ordinances. A lot of other cities that I did the research on have taken and put everything into what is a graffiti ordinance for their city. And that does include the abatement part of it and some other programs, education programs, war programs, and those type of things are all put into this graffiti ordinance. Right now, Lexington doesn't really have a comprehensive program to remove graffiti. We have the Sheriff's Department, which helps and assists with removal off of private property and businesses, those type of things. The Parks Department takes care of most all their areas on the parks. Traffic engineering does the street signs and those type of things, the traffic boxes. And what I found is a lot of the other cities, what they've done is there has been a program that has been built within the city that has all the appropriate equipment. A lot of it is some specialized equipment. You have the power washers. You have what's called soda blasting, which actually takes it off of certain materials that a power washer can't take it off of. And there's a lot of other chemicals that are kind of specialized chemicals that go along with the removal of graffiti. And you'll have some entity that runs that. And basically it's done once you get out there and have all the equipment, and it's done basically kind of like an on-call or a call-in type situation where you might have a hotline or something that if somebody spots graffiti, the next day a person would come in, they would be responsible for checking that, finding out where it's at, and then removing it quickly. The quick removal of graffiti is one of the most key components in stopping graffiti. If you look at all the national numbers and figures, that is probably the number one key to stopping graffiti from happening and continuing in an area is the quick removal of it. And that should be within 24 to 48 hours. Kind of a catch-22 on something to try to start that right now, and that would be a lot of the other places that started do what might be considered a waiver program. And what that would mean is the city or some entity would be responsible for cleaning up the graffiti off of the buildings and assisting private property owners if they sign a waiver saying that if there's any damages that are caused, there's a waiver of liability. And they also, which is in our code of ordinances, they have a specific amount of time that they have to remove it, and if it's not removed, then they are fined. Part of the removal program, it seems like a lot of the other cities, when I looked and researched how their ordinances came about, there was a little bit of, I guess, issue that they were concerned private property owners and businesses that they would be required to clean it up and they felt like they were being victimized over and over again because they were maybe a high graffiti area. And that's where the waiver program comes in to help them offset doing that and cleaning it up. So along with this, kind of the more immediate thing that we can do now is doing something, starting the ordinance with the illegal possession of graffiti implements or tools, as well as doing some signs and restricting sales of certain items to minors. Thank you, Officer Gaines. We have some questions here. I saw Mr. Beard, did you? You were on here or are you off now? You were on the list. Oh, okay. Oh, that was you all put in. Okay, thank you. Is there anybody who has any questions for Officer Gaines? Mr. Blevins. Thanks. I'd just like for you, we've talked privately many times about this issue. As you know, we have it all over the city, including my district. You had relayed an interesting story about why it's important to do the possession of the tools, a personal experience. Would you just state that for the viewing audience so they can understand why possession of the implements themselves can be a good way for us to keep this from happening in the first place, if you know what I'm talking about? Yes, I think I do. Last year, I believe it was sometime, we ran across several juveniles in the park over off of Gardenside. And they had spray paint in their backpacks. They admitted to spray painting areas around there. And they were actually suspected members of a gang. And at that time, there's nothing that prohibits the possession of any of those implements to minors or to anyone at that time. So those people that we stopped, actually, in the park and had that contact with were the ones who initially ended up going to South Carolina, I believe it was, shooting the five people, killing several of them, and ended up going to jail in South Carolina. But those were the same people that we had contact with in the park. Not that that would have stopped any of that. But those are some of the things that we, the people that we have contact with, that like to get identified and have them on record. Council members, I remind you that your cell phones next to the microphones is what's causing that sound. If anybody, just check at your desk. Thanks. That's why I wanted you to bring that up. So here we have an example right here. Had we had this ordinance in place, you guys could have taken these guys into custody and at least eliminated one small part of the threat. We could have had it already. I wanted to make sure the public understood that this happens on a daily basis for us already. Had we had the ordinance in place, we might be able to do something about the graffiti. So I support the idea of having restrictions based on possession of the tools. It's no different than possession of burglary tools and other things of a similar nature, and I would support doing this. I think it's a great idea, and thanks for pulling all this together. I'd also like to point out it's not just juveniles that are responsible. The last two people I've had contact with that were actually going out tagging, and this is not a gang-type graffiti, it's just the tagging. A lot of it you see downtown and all over Lexington. But they were in their 20s, mid-20s, early mid-20s. Are there any other questions for Officer Gaines? Mr. Beard? You mentioned implements, which sounds like there's something other than a can of spray paint. Is that the case? Yes, sir. Kind of go off on this right now. Most of it, spray paint, there is in the definitions of most other city ordinances, they do define quite a bit of that, but it would include spray paint, etching materials. One of the trends that is coming that's already in some other cities is glass etching graffiti, and that's where they actually take a design, like a template, and they put it up and they actually take this paste or liquid and they rub it over it, and when they pull it off it basically frosts or etches the glass into whatever shape is in there. That's happening in a lot of other cities right now, so that would be etching liquids or those type of materials is in there. There's also a lot of specific materials. If you go onto graffiti websites and things that I never knew existed, but there's nozzles that are specifically designed for either fine spray or broad spray. There are nibs or tips that go over this regular spray can, and those are also part of that. Broad tipped markers, and they kind of change depending on what city you look at to the definition, anywhere from an eighth of an inch to a quarter of an inch, but a lot of those are really quick if you look at the traffic boxes downtown. What I had in here was a quarter of an inch because I figure that an eighth of an inch is awful small to try to say that that would be it, so it's defined as a quarter inch, and that follows along with what the other cities are doing. Paint sticks, that is actually used, has other uses, but it's basically a tube that has a brush on it that you can paint, and that's another common item that's used, and that's what you see a lot on traffic boxes and tagging around town also. And then there's some of the broader, it also broadens to any other item that could be used for the permanently etching or marking materials in there, but the other ones are the main ones, and also the sale of those items are narrowed down to those four specific things, to sales to miners, the etching acid, the paint sticks, the broad tip markers, and the spray paint, so that would be also a sale item that would be prohibited just to miners on those. But you just said that the last two that you've been involved with were not miners. That's correct. It would be illegal for them to possess them out in areas, but as far as buying them, trying to prohibit somebody from buying a legal item that's commonly used would be hard to do, but I think that a lot of cities have done that as miners, such as spray paint. Spray paint, a lot of places, other states have state laws that prohibit the sale of spray paint. Our state law currently, I think it states it's a volatile substance, which doesn't specifically state spray paint. We have a current city ordinance that does state spray paint if it contains certain compounds in it that are volatile to inhale, so we'd already have something like that with spray paint, but it's strictly to miners. And that's for huffing or something of that sort, I guess. Correct. But an ordinary citizen could go to Home Depot or whatever and buy four cans of paint to paint their porch furniture and theoretically would be in violation? No, sir. The sale of it is just, deals with the miners, which would be 17 and below. Possession of it would deal with anybody, but there are certain exceptions in there which covers all that. If you're buying it and traveling from Home Depot to your home to go paint your things for art projects, a lot of the exceptions in there cover the legal parts that you could have those. But the sale of it, to answer your question, I think, is to go buy any of those things on an adult note would not be illegal to buy or purchase those. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Henson. I want to thank you for working on this. I know it was a lot of time spent and is really appreciated in my district. I had a question about the removal. It said that a property owner would be given 24 to 48 hours' notice that the graffiti needs to be removed. Under this ordinance, the city could remove it as long as they signed the waiver. But does weather play a factor in that removal, like the temperature outside or whether or not it's raining or whatever? Actually, in this ordinance, it specifically only deals with the graffiti implements. The removal and the abatement is not dealt with this. Those are just recommendations that other cities have done because that's a big part of it. And usually in the removal part of it, it's ideal to get it removed within 24 to 48 hours. But when you look at our code of ordinances, it's actually covered in there on that. And there's a longer period of time that people are given to remove it than the 24 to 48 hours. Usually in most of the other cities, it was somewhere between five days to two weeks once it was identified. Okay. So that is not a part of the ordinance, the removal of it? No, not right now. That was just one of the further recommendations because we're kind of in the catch-22. We don't have a program that's really in place that if we told somebody that they continually were getting graffiti on their properties and are fining them for not removing it or it's getting removed and put back on and there's no other assistance for them to help, I guess, take care of it, a lot of the other cities found out the people felt like they were being victimized. One of the other things that is in here is a reward program with the fine part of it to where and that's maybe a wording issue or something on here that part of the fine, some cities use a term called a surcharge above and beyond the fine that would go to a rewards program or abatement program that would be run by the Parks Department and they would get a certain percentage or a portion of money depending on how you want to word it, whether it's part of the fine or whether it's addition to any fines that are levied and that's also in addition to any restitution for property owners or businesses or the government. Mr. DeCamp? I would assume all this, that this proposed ordinance would then, the responsibility of enforcing it would be under the Department of Police, is that? Under this, yes, under the proposed ordinance. Okay. Mr. Chair, what is the normal procedure because, I mean, in concept, I think it's, you know, the right thing to do is to have a graffiti ordinance so that we can't really attack this head on and be more proactive, but it's the appropriate thing is to send this to our law department. I think Mr. Lane is going to make a motion that we're going to ask the law department to draft an ordinance and then come back to us with it. Go to it, Mr. Lane. Mr. Lane? Thank you, Chairman Ellinger. I make a motion for the Durham County Government's law department to draft a graffiti ordinance and submit it back to this committee for review and further referral to the council. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? I see Mr. Barbary. I'd just like to ask a point of clarification. Do you all favor the, I need to know in drafting this, do you all favor the criminalizing of the sale to minors? That's one aspect of this particular draft. And before we put that in there, I'd kind of like to get a feel for whether that's something you all want to include or not. That was one of the legal issues. It is legal to do that if you have justification for doing it. I just did not know whether that was something you all favor doing up front or approaching at a later point in time. But one aspect of this would be there are certain things that Officer Gaines mentioned that would be you would essentially be criminalizing the sale of those items to someone under the age of 18. So you could have a business cited as well for selling those things. I didn't know whether you all wanted to do it that way or not. Any discussion from council members? Mr. Lane. I think it's a very good point. What I would like to see is maybe when your recommendation comes back, we're going to have maybe two paragraphs, one where that is criminalized, one where it isn't. And that would give the full council an opportunity to review that and vote on it. That would be fine. And that gives an opportunity to vet it out. I see Mr. Hancock standing up. Would you like to be part of this discussion? What I would simply like to say is this is a tremendous problem for us, and it's growing rapidly. We probably had incidents in 15 parks two years ago, and now we have incidents in 30 or 40 parks on a regular basis. We've done two things, just so you know. We're not doing nothing. We have asked for the council to approve in the upcoming budget the purchase of a van that we can dedicate to this purpose. We've applied for grants to buy powerful pressure washers, which tend to do most of the work for us. We're hoping to use some Homeland Security grant money to buy a soda blaster, which takes it off of absorbent materials like brick and that sort of thing. So we have an active program ongoing to remove it quickly, and we're pretty good at it. Secondly, I'd like to say that we want to encourage you to include the reward portion of the ordinance. Lisa Johnson's here, who has spent $3,000 out of her pocket personally over the last five years seeking the names of people who perpetrate these crimes and has been successful at getting names, turning them over to the police, and prosecutions have resulted. So we think the reward piece here is effective through demonstrated experience in the last couple of years. So Parks is strongly in favor of this, and we hope that it can go forward. Thank you. Ms. Johnson, did you have anything you'd like to comment? Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? That passes. Thank you, Officer Gaines, for your hard work. And, Mr. Barbary, we look forward to seeing the legislation. The next item on the agenda is the Zandell Storm Drainage Ditch. And, Mr. Beer, that is put in committee by you. Thank you, Chair. A couple of months ago, I guess it was, a meeting was held in the fifth-floor conference room involving the Zandell Neighborhood Association. And I'm sure that most everybody in the room is familiar with what is affectionately known in that neighborhood as the Zandell Ditch. And it is a concrete, open concrete conduit of stormwater. Happily, Darrell Bennett came also to the meeting, and we discussed at length what the residents are concerned about, multiple things. The safety, the same situation if a heavy flow of water, similar to what happened, I guess, to the two young ladies at Nicksville Road and Alumni. Secondly, the pollution of that stream. Darrell, is that actually West Hickman Creek that that is? Where does it originate? I meant to ask you that the other day. Welcome, Mr. Bennett. Thank you. This is actually a sub-watershed of West Hickman. It meets the main branch next to Taste Creek Road just north of Malibu. Well, anyway, it has been tested, and E. coli has been found consistently in that water. I think it actually comes from some form of a spring, at least from looking at maps that I've seen. It just all of a sudden spring starts up. The source is proud. I'm not sure if there's a spring. There could be. The source is actually all the little storm sewer inlets throughout the upper neighborhood. Probably by the time you get down to Heather Way, there's several hundred acres drained to that point. Anyhow, the desire of the neighborhood would be to in some way cover this ditch. It runs roughly three blocks in length, and it would probably be extremely expensive. It does function as a stormwater conduit pretty well. There have been occasions in severely heavy rains when there has been some flooding backing up, I guess, where it actually goes underground. If you look at the aerial, the intersection of Zandell Drive and Libby Lane, there's been some flooding there and there's also been some flooding at Belafonte. And the flooding part's rare. That's not their major concern. Their major concern is the aesthetics and the safety for children. It becomes an attractive nuisance when it has water in it. And for those of you who have not been by there, it is pretty well enclosed by a normal highway guard rail, which has become rusted and unsightly. I had hoped that the president of the Zandell Neighborhood Association, whose meeting I went to last Sunday and who said not yesterday, the day before yesterday, but Sunday before last, said he would be here. I was hoping he would have made it, but I guess he didn't. Actually, we can't go a whole lot further without some more definitive ideas of costs. I think the residents would accept some beautification than there are. If you'll turn over, there are several options that are outlined. The top one, A, is to completely cover and encapsulate, so to speak, the stream. And then there are all various and sundry, replacing the guard rail with wooden, more decorative a la Paris Pike type of guard rail. And then the bottom two are involving plantings to screen the unsightliness. Again, we don't have any numbers. I just wanted to get it into committee and really lean on you all as to some ideas maybe that you all might have about how we might go forward. Do we have any council members? Mr. Blevins. Thank you, Chair. I would just mention that this is not unique to your district, Julian. We have several in my district as well that are open channels. They don't necessarily have guard rails even in some cases. I think what we're really talking about here is probably a money problem as much as anything else. We'll have to be a little careful for lots of reasons. One is that there are so many in town that I'm afraid if we do one, we'll end up with a cascade effect of everybody wanting the same thing. The second thing would be water quality. We need to keep an eye on that with whatever solution we do. I'm not necessarily against this. I agree. It's very unsightly. That's something that would have been nice to have fixed years ago. The only concern is that there's more than just Zandale. Yes, the Lafayette Parkway one is a good example. The school bus I rode for six years, we had to go right by it every day. That's an example that the neighborhood might want to look at because what they did is they got a grant and planted trees and cleaned up the vegetation along Lafayette Parkway, and it actually looks a lot better. So I don't know if that's not really an option for you guys yet, but that's something to keep in the back of your mind. Right. You know, the other problem for the residents who actually are adjacent to this is that as a practical matter, there's no on-street parking for them either because the roadway is so narrow there that if a car could get by, but they choose not to. At this point, do you have any recommendations or would you like to just keep this in the committee? Not at this point. We need to get some estimates on something before we can even begin to talk about anything. And for that matter, you know, the Neighborhood Association, I'm sure, could take the burden of maybe raising some funds to do some of this and maybe we could work out some kind of a matching deal. They understand it's been there for 45 years or so, and they aren't going to get it fixed in 45 days. Okay. We'll keep this one in committee then. Are there any other issues before the council? I'll take a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.