Jeff Humphrey, Media Manager, 509.625.6308
Friday, June 17, 2022 at 2:41 p.m.
If you have graffiti, traffic safety, or trash problems in your neighborhood, the City of Spokane offers programs that can help.
“The Office of Neighborhood Services works very closely with the 29 neighborhood councils throughout the city, as well as our community centers. We help connect our community members with resources such as cleanups, getting garbage disposed, and beautifying our neighborhoods,” said Cendy Ortiz, Staff Liaison, Office of Neighborhood Services.
Ortiz coordinates a blend of volunteers and City partners to get results. The Office of Neighborhood Services recently completed its fourth graffiti cleanup of the year in High Bridge Park.
“I wanted to get out and try to do something that would beautify the city and make it a more attractive place to come and explore with your family,” said a paint-spattered volunteer named Mike.
“Because we want people to utilize our parks, we want people to enjoy the outdoors and feel safe bringing themselves, their children, their pets, things like that,” added Ortiz.
And that’s one reason why Spokane C.O.P.S. also participated in the recent graffiti removal, offering up its ATVs to shuttle paint and equipment to the Latah Creek work site.
“Cleaning up graffiti then really fits in with the mission of C.O.P.S. in terms of crime prevention. That, by cleaning up graffiti and painting over graffiti, this stuff is sending the message, ‘Hey we’re paying attention, you’re not going to get away with your shenanigans here’ and, if we can stay on top of things like graffiti it starts to pay dividends with less crime,” said Patrick Striker, Executive Director, Spokane C.O.P.S.
Ortiz stresses each Spokane neighborhood has its own distinct needs and recommends residents learn more about their respective neighborhood councils.
“So residents can go onto the Office of Neighborhood Services, on the City website, and from there you can access our volunteer portal and you can see all the volunteer opportunities that we have, including things like when our traffic calming workshops are. You can find out what district you live in, and what neighborhood you live in, and that helps connect people to their neighborhood council, if they want to make a change or, get involved,” Ortiz said.
