SELMA – Homeowners with fences and walls vandalized by graffiti have a new recourse to beautify their property in the form of a revolving loan program provided by the city of Selma.
The Selma City Council unanimously approved a $5,000 loan program on Nov. 18 that will allow residents to borrow up to $300 to purchase the necessary materials to cover up or remove graffiti on their property. This program follows up on previous efforts by the city to help residents abate graffiti on private property, a recurring issue homeowners must address or risk a code enforcement citation.
“This is a program designed to allow some relief for people that are getting tagged not by their own will … to be able to have the city support them in a way to abate it per the current codes,” Public Works Director Michael Honn said.
The loan program will allow residents to borrow funds up front or receive reimbursement they can then pay back over time. Residents who borrow up to $150 will have six months to repay the loan, and those who borrow between $151 and $300 will have up to 12 months to repay the city. Selma will allocate a one-time amount of $5,000 to the loan program, and the “revolving” aspect of it will come in as residents pay back the borrowed funds and the city loans the funds out again.
According to city staff, Selma will work with residents facing continued hardship to formulate a new payment plan if they cannot repay the loan in the provided time frame. The initial program proposal said the city would place a lien on a person’s property if they refused to repay the loan within the time frame for a reason other than financial hardship; however, council members voted to not initiate the lien process in any case of non repayment.
“I like the plan, I just don’t like some of the execution,” Councilmember Sarah Guerra said. “I think that we need to really consider when, if a person can’t pay you the first 12 months, there’s a reason. … I don’t like the fact that we’re going to put a lien for $300 on somebody’s property; I just don’t think that makes sense.”
Multiple residents also said they disagreed with the lien element, even with city staff clarifying that the city would not place a lien on a property if residents were facing financial hardship. Resident Santiago Oceguera, who was elected to the council in the Nov. 5 election, said even with the city stating that it would not go after residents under financial hardship, the fact of the lien would still be a deterrent for many.
“How many people are going to avail themselves of this program? It’s a deterrent,” Oceguera said. “It’s not a benefit, like the mayor wants it to be. It’s got to be a benefit.”
City Manager Fernando Santillan told council the lien process was included with the loan program because the city’s municipal code requires the city to undertake that process to recover costs for rendered services and from civil debt owed to the city. The council does, however, have the power to dictate when city staff does or does not enforce that, and so council members decided to exclude pursuing liens in the graffiti loan program.
An alternative solution
Mayor Scott Robertson voted in favor of the graffiti loan program but said his initial vision was for the city to create a graffiti task force or paint donation program to provide graffiti abatement as a service to Selma residents. While Robertson said he would vote to approve the program with the lien aspect removed, he initially wanted the city to go back to the drawing board on the item and place less of an emphasis on loan repayment.
Robertson also said that in his opinion, public works should remove graffiti for a homeowner if they are tagged; however, the city’s municipal code stipulates that public works only abates graffiti and other public nuisances that are on public property, and private property beautification is left up to the property owner.
“I think the reason it’s in the city’s interest to fix that at our expense on a one-time basis per year is because it does make our city more viable for people to come live here and start a business here,” Robertson said.
With a graffiti task force that could recruit volunteers from the city to help residents clean up their properties and work with local businesses to supply donated paint, Robertson said Selma could raise the bar for its residents and incentivize people to keep their areas beautified. Referencing a previous item discussed at the Nov. 18 council meeting, Robertson said he heard more people talk about graffiti issues or a lack of lighting downtown than having problems with the city logo.
Santillan said the city has looked at ways it can help residents with graffiti abatement, but any program that does not function as a loan and instead gives residents money for paint would be considered a gift of public funds, which is illegal under the California Constitution.
The city has already been working with the local Home Depot and Ace Hardware to receive donated paint to provide to residents but was running into various issues with that. For residents with non-standard fence colors or residents who would paint over graffiti only to be tagged again immediately, the donated paint system only went so far.
Santillan said the city would continue to find ways to lessen the burden of graffiti abatement on its residents and deter graffiti altogether, but the loan program was a good medium “where we’re essentially granting it and allowing them to repay at their own pace without necessarily an undue hardship being placed on property owners for something that happened that’s outside of their control.”
