Those who contact out work are blind

I've seen this sort of thing twice in the last few weeks - contractors for Energy Australia working on improving the electrical distribution system.  In both cases, the contractors were working within spitting distance of a vandalised Energy Australia kiosk.  In this case, the kiosk is right behind the truck in the photo below, and the contractors were sitting around the kiosk having morning tea when I took the photo. 

The sign below explains who they are and what they are up to.

The chances of these contractors reporting the vandalism to Energy Australia are probably somewhere close to zero.  It's not something I would necessarily expect them to do, unless they were specifically asked to do so by Energy Australia.  Assuming that Bastow Civil Constructions has a long term contract with Energy Australia, you might think it reasonable that they have the sort of working relationship where EA would expect Bastow staff to act as their eyes for them - but that does not appear to be the case.  They dig holes and lay cable and leave it at that.

On top of that, I'd assume that from time to time, an Energy Australia manager would visit sites like this to check on the work that Bastow are doing.  I would expect that a manager employed by Energy Australia would care enough to do something about graffiti on an Energy Australia asset - but from what I can gather, I have higher expectations than many.

Contracting out work is something that I have no complaint with.  But in doing so, many organisations have lost direct visibility of how their assets look.  Contractors are "all care and no responsibility" - in this instance, they care about laying their pipes and cables properly, but have no responsibility for ensuring that this asset doesn't make the neighbourhood look like a slum.

Mixed bag from the RTA and Australia Post

I had feedback this week from the RTA and Australia Post on some items that I had reported to them.  The RTA took care of one of them in two weeks and the other in 3 months.  Two weeks is a good result, whilst 3 months is stretching the friendship.

The responses state that the RTA had their contractors remove the graffiti at each site, which might explain the long delay.  If they have to log the job into the RTA system, then arrange for the contractor to provide a quote, then issue a purchase order for the job etc etc, that can result in some pretty serious delays in getting approval to do the work.  Paperwork rarely moves quickly through any government agency.

Perhaps what they need to do is to pre-purchase a block of hours from the contractor.  That allows the local RTA manager to get the work done without having to go through all the usual purchasing system rigmarole.  Let's say the RTA buys 100 hours of time from a painting contractor in advance.  When graffiti is reported, the contractor visits the site and gives an idea of how long they think it will take to paint it over.  They might get approval over the phone on the spot for a small job, allowing it to be done immediately.  

For a bigger job (say something requiring 10 hours or more of labour), the contractor might have to provide their estimate in writing, but they can get the approval back much faster, allowing a very quick turnaround.

As for Australia Post, I have reported a number of vandalised letter boxes around the place via the AusPost website.  I got a response last night saying that they could not process my reports until I gave them my home address.

Firstly, they already have my home address, because I have reported these things before.

Secondly, on the AusPost web form, providing your address is not mandatory.

Thirdly, why on earth do they need my address before they can go about cleaning something that their staff visit every single day?  Surely, if they doubt my report, they can simply ask the postie who has that route to provide some feedback?

Bureaucracy will be the death of us all.

My kind of mural

This mural of an early Rolls Royce has been painted on the back door of a car dealership.  I presume they've had problems with this door being tagged in the past.

Now that's a mural.  If our local "artists" were throwing up pieces of that quality, I wouldn't be complaining at all.

Go forth and multiply

How much good can one person do? A reasonable amount for sure, but there is a limit to the amount of time and effort that one person can put into this game.

I am therefore trying to do something that is usually described as a "community awareness campaign". Normally, these things are dreamed up by a government agency of some sort, and they end up as a series of expensive TV advertisements and a stack of brochures gathering dust. I am taking a different tack - a grass roots tack if you like.

My kids attend a community daycare centre with children from half a dozen other families. Most of these families live in the same neighbourhood as us - we sometimes bump into each other when we take the kids to local parks and playgrounds. Since all our kids are benefiting from these parks and playgrounds, I thought that their parents would be a good group to get on board.

I wrote a one page flyer two weeks ago, printed 10 copies and asked if I could leave it at the daycare centre along with the other materials that are left out for parents to take. I simply asked the other parents to take an active role in reporting any problems that they see in our parks and playgrounds.

We're not forming a Simpson's style vigilant group with pitchforks and flaming torches, or even a Friends of the Park (which Council has in their Strategic Plan, but hasn't done much about) with the aim of conducting regular working bees to clean up sections of a park. It's just a matter of spotting something and then phoning it in to Council - the addition of another dozen sets of eyes. That's all we need.

I'm hoping that a cheap, simple campaign like this will have more "pull" with this group of parents, because it is one parent talking directly to another with a focused message, rather than a distant bureaucracy using the usual shotgun approach with its marketing methods.

Could this be the start of a parent-to-parent viral campaign? Maybe.

On a side note, the "power of one" seems to be having some impact at least. This blog will soon be having its first birthday, although I was doing this sort of stuff on a haphazard basis before I started writing about it. In my opinion, and mine alone, our local area has started looking a lot better in the last few months. We still have graffiti and damage, but there is less of it, and it doesn't stick around for very long. The number of "graffiti free days" is on an upward trajectory.

For a long time, I was plugging away and seeing a few localised results, but no overall improvement. Suddenly, everything seems to be coming together and working in sync and I think we are seeing wholesale improvements in amenity right across the City of Canada Bay.

----------------

"Graffiti free days" - there is a particular spot that I am thinking of that used to have graffiti on it permanently. It was never cleaned off. Then Council started cleaning it every few months - it would have a few days without graffiti, then back it would come. Then Council started cleaning it every Monday - graffiti would return on the following Saturday night, but would only be visible on Sunday before it was removed on Monday. The community was treated to six graffiti free days, rather than the zero they had before.

This site is now entering its third week with no graffiti, and no cleanups required. That may change this weekend if the weather is good (vandals don't work in the rain) and the miscreants return from their school holiday excursions to distant parts of the state - but as of today, we have had 22 graffiti free days at this site. If it gets hit this Saturday, it will have had 27 graffiti free days, then one with graffiti, then the "graffiti free" clock will start running again. I'm not sure if the constant cleaning has worn the little sods down and discouraged them, or if its the bad weather that has kept them indoors - but whatever the cause, the results have been good.

One small step for man....

As the Chinese supposedly say, "A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step".

In the middle of 2008, I started to wonder whether government authorities like EnergyAustralia were reporting graffiti on their property to the Police.  As time went by, it became pretty obvious that the answer was no.  

From my haphazard observations, an awful lot of the graffiti that mars our public spaces is scrawled on government assets.  Most agencies have some sort of system to get it removed, but unless it is reported, the statistics will never truly reflect the amount of damage being done, and the effort required to clean it up.  

A good statistical picture also allows someone with the right training to discern patterns and to target resources to where they can do the most good.  At present, most of the statistics on graffiti in this area are based around Council property, because the Council reports everything - but that skews the picture.  You can have areas that have little or no Council property, but are utterly blighted by graffiti, yet they will not show up in the statistics as problem areas because nothing has been reported.

I wrote to the Minister for Energy last month and got this response today in regard to EnergyAustralia.

Good.  It's a small step, and more need to be taken, but a small step is better than none.  Now for the next ones.........

Does this sound like "misguided youth" to you?

The Werribee Watch blog gets more comments in a day than I get in a year.  Quite a few comments are more than just downright hostile - clearly, there are some people that don't have a spotlight shined on their activities, and they react rather badly when told that their misdemeanors are not appreciated.

Here is a sample of some recent comments:

 Anonymous said...

Sucked in mate, ur not gonna catch him

because he doesnt even graffiti and da wrng photo mate ha ha ha

i say its shit dective work...

and y u keep gettin people you snob.. u better keep your mouth shut before i fuck it....

 darcy said...

fuck you,ill find you and smash u ill find oh you are im comin to get you

 Anonymous said...

this kunts name is john xiberus and he doesnt go galvin any more

miss ryan can suck my cock

  Anonymous said...

what is it with all you wankers you all need to get a life and find something more serious to do with your fuked up lifes

seriously what is the point of putting this and all the other crap on your fucking stupid websites 

GET I LIFE U FUKING NO LIFE CUNT

  COMMENCE said...

FUK U WERRIBEE WATCH U DEAD CUNT 

U DONT KNOW SHIT ABOUT NUTTIN 

FUKEN BITCH 

LOVE AIMER

COMMENCE 

HAHAHAH CUNT FUKEN TOOL

  COMMO said...

HEY WERRIBEE WATCH, WHY DONT YOU GO FUCK YOURSELF CUNT, IM GONNA FIND OUT WHO YOU ARE AND IM GONNA COME AND SMASH YOUR FUCKING HEAD IN DOG, YOU FUCKING DO GOODER CUNT, FUCKING PUSSY, GET A LIFE, GOING ON LITTLE KIDS MYSPACE, FUCK BRO YOUR SUCH A HERO, HERE MAN GO ON MY MYSPACE TRY PUT ME ON YA WEBSITE YA DOG WATCH WHAT HAPPENS CUNT, AND I HOPE YOU TRACE MY IP ADDRESS AND COME TO MY HOUSE CUNT ILL SNAP YOU LIKE THE BITCH YOU ARE. www.myspace.com/c0mm0

PEACE OUT FAGGET.

  Steph Brash said...

I love a good gang bang.

C'mon get it Werribee Watch I am still warm.

  Anonymous said...

to be honest you people should stop bithching a moaning about this kind of behaviour. u should be worrying about little kids get raped by my friends:) pws ftw lgc

  Anonymous said...

your a goose cunt.

lave these kids alone for fuck sake.

kids grow out of graffiti and by the loooks of things he will aswell.

HIS A TOY AND HE COYPS HIS SKETCHS! never touched a spray can in his life.

the style sketch was bitin off something else.

None the less HIS 16 CUNT! give werribee kids a break! what your doing is fucking weird and quite creepy!

ever take a photo of me or my tag or any of my panels cunt and i will make sure i find who you are and where you live!

  Anonymous said...

PANELS FOR LIFE CUNT. 

FUCK CONNEX YOU DIRTY FUCKIN DOG. 

FUCK DSG. 

MTS NIGGAAAAAAH. 

WERRIBEEEEEE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT. 

FREEE ZIMER & MAVER YAH FUKN DOGS.

This doesn't sound like good, middle class kids who go a bit silly from time to time and deserve to be let off because they are "misguided" or had a single "lapse in judgement".  

I do get a good chuckle though out of Australian teenagers from a small, semi-rural city thinking that they are hard men and boyz from the hood.  Unlike them, I've actually been through several rough neighbourhoods in American cities and I've seen what ganglands and gangstas look like with my own eyes.  

These clowns are only fooling themselves.

Wonders will never cease

This just goes to show that persistence does pay off most of the time.  After 11 months, RailCorp have finally slapped a coat of paint on the outside surfaces of this bridge in Leichhardt.  They didn't bother with the inside, which is not visible from the road, but the graffiti on the inside surfaces is visible from the pedestrian bridge nearby where I took this photo from.

I had given up on RailCorp ever doing anything or replying to my letters, so I wrote to the Member for Balmain yesterday (Verity Firth MP) and asked her to do something about it.  I had to write again today to tell her to forget about it.

The next challenge is getting RailCorp to paint out graffiti as it reappears.  This area here, comprising this rail bridge and an RTA pedestrian bridge, is a graffiti hot spot, and frequent use of the paint brush and grey paint is required to keep on top of the graffiti.  The RTA manages to do it - let's see if RailCorp can lift their standard to that of the RTA.

The Google mapping of crime

The heading for this post is not my idea - I have stolen it from Samizdata.  I urge you to have a read of their article on The Google mapping of crime, and this article they linked to that describes the idea of citizens getting re-involved in tackling crime.

I cop the odd bit of flak regarding the time that I put into the activities that I describe in this blog.  The usual comment is "get a life".

Thanks, but I have a life.  I have plenty of time to do things because I have cut my television viewing right back - it's funny how many extra  hours in the day you suddenly have when viewing is limited to an hour or two on weeknights, and nothing on weekends.  Many possibilities suddenly open up when you have the equivalent of an extra day or more in the week.  I spend a very small amount of my new-found time on this blog and things that go with it - but I think I'm getting a huge level of positive payback from it.  

The article above refers to our free time as our "civic surplus".  We all have it - most of the drudgery that our grandparents had to put up with has been eliminated by washing machines, dish washers, cars, phones and so on.  It's now a question of how you spend your civic surplus. Do you fritter it away in front of the TV being mindlessly entertained, or do you turn off the box and do something useful with it - something that will advance our civilisation in a positive way.

Over to you, and the remote control.

Irregular update

It's been a week of the usual graffiti reporting - a few Council sites, the odd Energy Australia kiosk and some RTA utility boxes.

The good news is that all concerned are increasing the tempo in which they perform cleanups. Energy Australia in particular seems to have greatly reduced the turnaround time between a report being made and paint being applied.

Westpac have also cleaned up their Five Dock branch - that took less than a week from report to action. I haven't checked on the graffiti on the Commonwealth branch, and I keep forgetting to report graffiti on the side of the NAB branch.

It was no surprise to me to see this story on "Police under siege" published in the Daily Telegraph this week:

Police stations have been hit by everything from graffiti to robberies.
Twenty-six have been broken into since July 2007.

That includes our local Five Dock station, which was hit by graffiti in May last year. The thing that disturbed me most is that the Police ignored it for a week, and it was left to me to report it to the manager responsible for maintaining their station. They treated it as somebody else's problem.

If the Police are failing to take quick action to have graffiti removed from their own premises, it makes it so much harder to sell the idea of rapid removal to local businesses and residents. That is frustrating and annoying. Catching vandals is not easy - but cleaning up after them is.

What is it with Subway?

The favourite establishment of our local teenage litterbugs - Subway.  All photos taken in Five Dock Park over a 5 minute period.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six (plus a lounge, dragged away from a kerb side cleanup and dumped in the park).

Seven.

Eight.

So that's what rubbish bins are for - you spray graffiti on them.

I don't blame Subway - they just happen to be the dominant take-away establishment of choice in this area.  Other parks nearby will have other fast food outlets providing the majority of the litter - some will be wall to wall (or tree to tree) McDonalds, others KFC.  If there are pizza outlets nearby, their cartons will dominate.  

Regardless of what they choose to eat or which park bench they choose to sit on whilst they eat, a small percentage of our local residents have not been brought up very well.  I hope they are caught and brought before a vegan Magistrate and sentenced to eat tofu for a month.

Party pigs in the park

Sunday morning - a beautiful time of the week to stretch the legs and go for a stroll in Five Dock Park.  Beautiful, except for the mess left by the Saturday Night Regulars.  I have no beef with teenagers having a party in the park at night - I did that often enough at that age. 

However, we didn't trash the place, and we generally tidied up after ourselves.  Malicious damage was out of the question.  We didn't set fire to rubbish bins and break wooden seats and tear out plants and spray graffiti over every available surface.

We knew that if we made a mess too often, we'd be busted, and that would be the end of that.  It was much more sensible to remove any evidence of our presence so that we could continue with our nocturnal activities.

Apart from these cartons, they left behind dozens of bottles and cans.  The cartons show up much better in the photos though - they make a better visual statement of the sort of mess that was strewn about.  This was scattered over hundreds of metres of park.

Broken VB stubbie.

That could ruin your whole day.

Smashed Extra Dry bottle.

Smashed Melbourne Bitter stubbie - I don't know how they can drink this stuff.  It's awful.

Two weekends ago, we had some beers and take away fish and chips at dusk in another local park with some friends.  We were there for a few hours, had a reasonable number of drinks and generated a fair amount of rubbish in terms of empty champagne bottles and stubbies and greasy paper bags and foam containers etc that previously held fish and chips.  The kids ran around yelling and screaming and playing hide and seek and making plenty of racket, but not in a way or place that would disturb the nearest neighbours.

When we finished, the whole lot went into the bin.  We left the park as we found it - clean and tidy, and with no visible sign that we were ever there.

That's all these clowns have to do.  Enjoy the park.  Have fun.  Yahoo if you want to.  But respect the park and everyone else that wants to use it, and don't bugger it up for the hell of it. Is that too much to ask?

When a filthy McDonalds can be a good thing

Adelaide Now asks if they have found the filthiest fast food joint in Australia.

When I first saw the video of the mess in this restaurant at 3am, I was disgusted.  Then I thought that perhaps this is not so bad - if you forced the little pigs with no manners that made this mess to eat elsewhere, all they'll do is throw this litter on the ground in a public place.  I'd prefer to have all the rubbish collected in one spot, where it is easy to gather it up and dispose of it, than to have it scattered throughout our streets and parks.

Furthermore, the restaurant that produced these wrappings and drink containers is also responsible for cleaning them up if they are dumped on the premises.  If they are taken away and dumped in a park, it is somebody else's problem.

I can't see any blame being attached to McDonalds here, or any other fast food establishment. Some of their customers are simply pigs.  Last weekend, I watched a teenager walking through a local park and she casually tossed her Subway drink cup over her shoulder and onto the grass. For some people, making a mess is a "heroic" statement.  Apart from installing a trough for these people to eat from, I'm not sure what else we can do.

A few things here and there

It's been a typical week, reporting graffiti on a few Energy Australia kiosks and Council assets. What I have noticed of late is that Energy Australia is now a lot quicker at cleaning up their assets than they were when I started.  I'd guess they have cut their turnaround time from 2 months to 2-3 weeks.

That's still too slow, but it's a big improvement.  Personally, I still think they should simply handover responsibility to Council, who would clean it within a week, and then they could stop worrying about it and concentrate on their core business - delivering electricity reliably.

I went past an Energy Australia kiosk yesterday and noticed graffiti on it.  Not 50 yards away, their contractors were digging up the road and laying or replacing cable.  It had to be Energy Australia contractors, because they had a sign up saying, "Improving our electricity supplies in this area".  The street was closed off, they had 5 or 6 trucks and a dozen staff working on the site - and what is the bet that none of them thought they should bother to report graffiti on an asset that they were working right next to?

Last week, I went to the first meeting of the new Police Community Safety Precinct Committee (CSPC) here in Five Dock - and found myself being the only member of the "community".  As far as I am concerned, the meeting went well and we had a good discussion about a number of issues.  The next meeting will be held in 3 months time, possibly at another venue and at a later time to allow more people to attend.  

Everyone who attended (the meeting included our local member, Angela D'Amore MP, two Councillors, several Council staff and a number of Police officers) want to see more members of the public at future meetings.  

What bank?

We have a branch for all the major banks here in Five Dock, and three of them have been vandalised recently with tags.  I used the contact pages on the Commonwealth and Westpac internet sites over the Easter break to report it, but only Westpac has responded so far.  I still need to report graffiti on the side of the NAB branch.  Our old friend "semen" left his tag on the Commonwealth branch, possibly confusing people as to what sort of bank resides at that address - a sperm bank or a financial institution.

I tried to track down the manager responsible for the soon-to-be-opening Fitness First gym in Five Dock last week, with no result.  Fitness First are easy to contact if you want to become a member, but impossible to contact if you want to talk to management.  It took me quite a long time to find a usable phone number, and even then their receptionist bounced me around their phone system several times before I was dumped unceremoniously at what may turn out to be a useless and unmonitored voicemail box.  I left a message asking for the Project Manager responsible for setting up the gym to either remove the very extensive graffiti on the building, or to call me about it.  I'm not holding my breath.

Grubs in the park

I took one of our kids to the playground in Five Dock Park today, and when I got there, I noticed that there were half a dozen Subway drink cups scattered nearby on the grass, as well as a number of Subway food wrappers.  Not long after, two teenage girls walked past the playground holding Subway drinks and a bag of Subway sandwiches.  They sat down at a park bench about 50 metres away (shown here in box "A").  They had lunch, then stood up and left the food wrappers and food scraps on the picnic table, even though there was a bin nearby at "B".  They just didn't care.

Not long after, they walked over our way holding their drinks, and as they went past this hedge, they casually tossed the empty cups over their shoulders, where they joined the existing half dozen on the ground.  This is presumably typical behaviour for their crowd.  The Subway containers joined several empty beer bottles and Vodka UDL cans in the vicinity.

Not long after that, another young woman walked past the playground as she headed out of the park.  As she went past the playground and the bin here marked "B", she simply tossed the can of Coke she was carrying on the ground.  No effort was made to divert her direction of travel slightly to put the can in the bin - it was almost as if she was making a statement by deliberately and consciously throwing it on the ground.

I took this photo, then put the can in the bin.

So much for youngsters caring for the environment.

Finishing the job

This sign was tagged last weekend and cleaned during the week.  This rather useless tag appeared on Sunday.  I suppose the pen was on its last legs.

Our enterprising vandal thought that just wasn't up to the normal standard, so they returned the next day to apply it properly - voila.  The same sign on Monday (today).

Annoying edits

The local paper publishes a pro-graffiti letter every few weeks, so I decided to weigh in recently with a counter argument.  My letter made it into the paper, but with a few cuts. I know that they have to edit them as space is limited, but I do wish they'd left these red bits in:

In response to Gilbert Grace (2 April 2009) that "Removing graffiti is not the best option", I ask whether the recent scrawling of multiple tags saying “semen” and “rsol” (arsehole) on public and private property in Five Dock is “witty and creative”, and why they should not be removed. I also ask whether someone who draws numerous penises over equipment in children’s playgrounds should be described as an “artist”.

Most graffiti removal efforts are directed at removing tags that are offensive, puerile and utterly without artistic merit or a spark of creativity or wit. Face it, there is only one “Banksy”, Mr Grace, and he does not live in the inner west.  Most of the graffiti “artists” in this area are so talentless, they couldn’t get a job demonstrating colour-by-numbers booklets to infants. 

I thought it was important that people understand what the tag RSOL means.  It might have been chopped for being offensive, but if that is the case, why are so many property owners accepting of having it splattered all over their buildings?

As for the bit about Banksy, I get a quiet chuckle out of his work.  I appreciate it for its creativity and wit, and I do think it has a lot of merit.  In my opinion, it is art.  Whether it deserves to be left untouched on private property is another matter, but the guy does have talent.

However, he is one in a million, and just because he has the touch, it doesn't mean every other jumped-up wanna-be "artist" should have free rein to deface property that is not theirs.  I don't see the merits of graffiti as an argument about art - I see it as an issue of property rights.  If that wall over their belongs to you, and you can prove that you have title, put whatever you want on it.  If it belongs to someone else, keep your cotton-pickin' fingers off it.  It's not yours to fiddle with.  You have no right to interfere with somebody else's possessions.

It's the little things

I care about public assets because I use them reasonably often, and so do my kids.  If they are broken (for whatever reason), they are no good to anyone.  We, the taxpayer, paid for these things - and I want to get my money's worth out of them.

Here we have a simple thing - a torn sun shade over the playground in Five Dock Park.  This tear is currently 3-4 feet long.  This sun shade has plenty of patches on it, so it's obviously been torn before, either through tree branches falling on it or wind damage.

I've reported this tear because if left untreated, it will simply grow and grow until the entire sun shade is a write off.  Instead of a cheap patch job, we rate payers will have to pay a lot more for its replacement.  

As the old saying goes, a stitch in time saves nine......

If you care about keeping your rates down, the least you can do is tell your local Council about damage at an early stage so that it can be repaired at low cost.  

Smoked out

We start this post with a view Park Road in Five Dock, looking back at the houses that skirt Five Dock Park.  

I am showing you these houses because the residents of these houses have a view straight into the park, and I walked over to them and checked that you can see the grandstand from the ground floor.

Out the back of the grandstand is this park bench, freshly adorned with a few graffiti tags, and with abandoned pizza boxes on the ground.  I'm assuming that whoever is constantly vandalising this spot is also responsible for the rubbish left lying around this area on a Sunday morning - fast food wrappers and vodka cruiser cans are scattered here and there.  Again, this bench is visible from at least half a dozen houses.

Then we have the back of the grandstand - not so visible due to trees and bushes, but tagged over the weekend - presumably on Saturday night.

The piece de resistance is the side of the grandstand, on which I can count 22 separate tags.  Ten of these are the ubiquitous "RSOL" (or 'arsehole') who appears to be a member of the local SKB tagging crew.  Again, these all appear to have gone up on Saturday night.  This wall is clearly visible from Barnstaple Road - I regularly drive down Barnstaple, and I can see tags as I drive past.  They are certainly visible from a number of houses.

This bit of artwork might explain what the vandals are getting up to - "smoked out" implies they've all been on the bong either before, during or after their little rampage.  It wouldn't surprise me to learn that they need a bit of artificial courage before slinking around to throw up some tags in the dead of night.   

As usual, this has been reported via the council web reporting system.  I expect the graffiti truck to have removed all this within a day or two.  And so another week begins.

I do wonder though what the local residents make of all this.  Do they hear parties here late at night on Saturdays, complete with smashing bottles and the sound of breaking furniture, and just ignore it?  Do they see the rubbish and the graffiti and the broken glass the morning after, and wonder what to do?  Or is it all just too hard to deal with, and better left to somebody else to worry about and clean up?

RailCorp vs RTA - same portfolio, different approaches

RailCorp and the RTA both deal with infrastructure - bridges, culverts, pedestrian footpaths, utility boxes and so forth.  Whilst RailCorp is generally very good at removing graffiti quickly from trains and stations, it is hopeless at removing it from infrastructure.  It is now nearly 11 months since I first asked RailCorp to clean the graffiti on this bridge, with no result.

Just next to this bridge is a strip of RTA land and a pedestrian footbridge that crosses the City West Link.  The RTA bridge cops a lot more graffiti than the RailCorp structure, but the RTA is generally diligent in regard to removing it.  They've even had a crew here recently cleaning up the landscaping - trimming back the undergrowth and collecting the rubbish that the vandals had left behind.

I find it funny sometimes that vandals like to think of themselves as "responsible artists", yet they never seem to take away their rubbish when they have finished trashing a site.  They leave empty pizza boxes and other fast food wrappers behind, along with empty cans and bottles (mixed vodka drinks seem to be their favourite), together with the ubiquitous empty spray cans.  Last time I came through here, I counted half a dozen empty spray cans dumped under the trees.  Now that's really "caring for the environment".  Not.

Here is a patch of wall that the RTA is responsible for.  As a vandal has written "fuck you" on it, this is now classed as offensive graffiti, which means the RTA is obliged to remove it more rapidly than usual.  

The amazing thing is that the RTA and RailCorp are both subordinate to the Ministry of Transport.  You'd think that from a policy standpoint, the Ministry would try and have a consistent policy between the two organisations, particularly when both have infrastructure right next to each other, such as this location.  You might also think that the two authorities might be able to liaise from time to time so that cleaning work at a site like this could be carried out at the same time, ensuring the entire site is free of graffiti from end to end.

If you think that is the case, you are living in fantasy land.  Lack of co-operation and policy co-ordination is alive and well in the NSW public sector.

I spotted this just across the way - "Poo is 4 you!", written on the back of a real estate sign.

Nice - writing that right next to a childcare centre.  Vandals are all class.

Not obsessing

I have sometimes been accused of "not having a life" in my comments, which is an interesting statement for those that don't know me to make.  A bit of personal abuse is not going to make me pack up shop and go away.  If anything, it strengthens my purpose.  

I have posted very little this week because I don't have anything new to say.  I haven't let up though with reporting graffiti to Australia Post and Energy Australia.  I've been using their web based systems for reporting, and I have to say that it is almost faster to write them a letter than to use their web based systems.  They have no hope of ever reaching a 24 hour turnaround time to remove graffiti when it takes them 2-5 days to respond to a web query.

Energy Australia did repaint a substation in this area last week, which is a good thing.  However, the contractor that they engaged to do the job only painted over the graffiti on the brick work - they didn't bother though to remove graffiti on the signage.  Is that pointless or what?  The idea is to clean 100% of the surface area, not 90%.  The place still looks messy, but the painting contractor can claim that they did their job, and they deserve payment.

Whoever engaged the contractor needs a boot up the backside.

Clearly, removing graffiti is not a core business activity for Energy Australia.  Given the blackouts we've had in the CBD this week, you could also argue that delivering reliable electricity is also not a core business activity either - but that is a different matter.

Since graffiti is non-core, they appear to have completely outsourced it to contract painters.  If that is the case, why not outsource the activity to local councils, like ours, who offer a total graffiti removal service and not just a painting service?  The example of this substation shows that they need someone who can do more than just paint - they need a service that can wash graffiti off where appropriate and paint over it where appropriate.  

This means I am going to have to report the substation again, this time asking for the signage to be cleaned.  What I don't understand is how the local management of Energy Australia could let this slip by.  Has no one been out to inspect the work of the painting contractor?  If they did visit, did they spot the remaining graffiti and think that the job was incomplete, and further cleaning was required?

Protocol, continued

There are times when I find myself bashing my head against the brick wall of insane processes that some private companies and government saddle themselves with.  Convoluted, paper-dense, hard to follow processes that are so time consuming to carry out properly that people either don't bother to do anything, or they go around the processes altogether in order to get things done.

Yesterday was different.  I discovered what on the surface appears to be a fairly simple process.  The officer at the Department of Premier & Cabinet who deals with protocol rang me back and told me that if I wanted a new flag for Five Dock Police Station, I had to call the Office of Police Protocol - they handle the issue of flags to Police Stations.  She even gave me their phone number.

One call later, I had learned that ordering a flag is as easy as ordering a Police uniform (assuming you actually work for the Police).  I don't know how hard it is to order a uniform, but given that all the Police I've seen lately have been walking around in more than their underwear, it can't be that hard.

The Constable in the Police Protocol office said that he would call Five Dock station and tell them that a member of the public was unhappy with their flag, and the way that they are treating it, and could they please order a new one through the appropriate channels.  The Constable said he'd even make sure he sends them a booklet on flag protocol.

If it was that easy for me, as a complete outsider, to work out what to do, I have only one question to ask - why hasn't anyone in the Burwood command bothered to do this for the last 6 months?  It's really not that hard.

Abandoned boats

And I thought we had a problem with abandoned cars in our neighbourhood:

From the New York Times:

They often sandpaper over the names and file off the registry numbers, doing their best to render the boats, and themselves, untraceable. Then they casually ditch the vessels in the middle of busy harbors, beach them at low tide on the banks of creeks or occasionally scuttle them outright.

The bad economy is creating a flotilla of forsaken boats. While there is no national census of abandoned boats, officials in coastal states are worried the problem will only grow worse as unemployment and financial stress continue to rise. Several states are even drafting laws against derelicts and say they are aggressively starting to pursue delinquent owners.

The Leichhardt Council rangers rang today to say that a car I reported abandoned in their patch last week will be towed shortly.  I thought they had to give owners 30 days notice before removing a vehicle, but they said it's only 72 hours if the registration has expired.

Going down the FOI rabbit hole

I've submitted one FOI request in my life, and I really don't want to have to go through that again if I can help it. However, I am at the point where I might have to lodge a request with RailCorp in order to extract some information out of them.

The question is this - how do you actually submit an FOI request to RailCorp?

I started by searching the RailCorp website for a contact number and perhaps an actual FOI request form template. It returned no hits for the search term "FOI". I got one hit with "freedom of information" - but all I found was a Summary of Affairs. All this tells me is this:

Many RailCorp documents are available for inspection or purchase. Access to some documents may require an application under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. You can apply under the FOI Act for access to documents held by RailCorp that are not publicly available.

There is nothing in there about how to actually apply for documents, just a note that you can apply. It's like being a character in Catch-22.

I then fell back on Google, which threw up a hit under the CCTV section of the RailCorp website:

RailCorp collects, uses, stores and disseminates personal information, in a manner consistent with the Information Privacy Principles contained within the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998. Complaints concerning privacy are to be referred to the RailCorp FOI/Privacy Office on ph: (02) 8202 2323.

At least it provides a phone number for the FOI office, but no link to FOI request templates or other useful information. Not even an address where you can mail your request.

Google also threw up a hit on the 2004-2005 Annual Report for RIC, which says:

The FOI and Privacy Office is located in the Communications Group, Level 6, 18 Lee Street Chippendale NSW 2008, and may be contacted on (02) 8202 2323 or (02) 8202 3058 during business hours.

Knowing my luck, the FOI Office will have been re-organised into another department since 2005, and will also be located in another building. At least the phone number appears to still be the same.

Contrast this with the RTA. A search for FOI on the RTA website returns 50 hits, many of them useful, such as a list of forms in PDF format that you can actually use to request information.

It's no wonder that the RIC annual report listed only 2 FOI requests for 2004-2005. The people who managed to lodge those requests must have been world class private detectives.

Protocol

I did my best last week to get a quiet message to the Burwood Police Local Area Commander about the correct treatment of the state flag that they "fly" outside the Five Dock station (Five Dock reports to the Burwood LAC). The flag has not been taken down in months, even though that is a breach of flag protocol. In fact, until I arranged for Canada Bay Council to cut back the tree that had grown around the flag pole, the flag was simply left tangled in the branches.

It is now a tattered wreck, looking like regimental colours after the Battle of Waterloo.

Apparently the Superintendent at Burwood was less than happy with my request, and more so, he's done nothing about it.

I've just left a message with the officer in the Department of Premier and Cabinet who hopefully takes care of these things. I've asked them to arrange a new flag for the station, and to provide the officers there with a book on how to treat it properly.

I feel like I am reduced to wiping the bottoms of infants.

What disturbs me most about this is that surely the Police station must be equipped with a set of written daily routines or procedures. That is, the first person to open the station in the morning should be going through a checklist to ensure that the station is in a fit state, and the last person out the door at night should be going through a closure checklist. There should also be a checklist for shift changeover. Every business that I have ever worked in has had checklists like this to ensure that staff do things properly and don't forget things. They are used to keep the workplace in a clean and manageable state.

If such checklists exist (and I hope they do), then presumably each one would have something to say about the flag. ie, put it up when the station opens, and take it down at night and store it properly. Pretty simple really.

If they have it on the checklists and aren't following each step, then management needs to give the person in charge a boot up the backside. If they don't have any checklists at all, then management needs a boot up the backside.