I always thought that I was the least artistically gifted person in the universe- thanks for posting this.

But on a serious note, our (Westville's) trusted and ever-faithful LCI Officer, Elaine Braffman, will have a solution. Please give Elaine a call at 203-946-7835 and/or email her, with pics, at ebraffma@newhavenct.net
Elaine is very responsive, and is kept so busy she unfortunately doesn't have time to keep up w/ SCF.

I was also worried that "WSTVLNs" meant "West Villians" as in some gang name that's a play on our sweet little village. Is that paranoia or just realism? It's scary.

Just called and emailed Elaine Braffman at LCI with attached photos. Hope to hear back from her soon.

Andy O,
I confused by your comment. SeeClickFix can send emails to Elaine but they are already being sent directly to her bosses at LCI who are paying for the service. Why does Elaine not have time to respond to SCF but she does has time to respond to email or phone calls? Sounds like its an issue of answering publicly documented questions not of time to respond. Also there are seven people on this issue that she would have to communicate with meaning 7 times to communication. Why would emailing Elaine photos separately make the most sense?

Thanks,
Ben

Ben,
I can't/won't comment regarding Elaine's use of her time, other than that I know her to be incredibly responsive to her constituents and has easily proven herself to be a hard working and dedicated public servant. My experience working with her on solving issues throughout our district indicates that contacting her directly is the best way to get to her. In theory, if the original poster reached out directly to LCI as their primary means of bringing light to the issue it would thereby cut out a middle man/person/computer. I mean no disrespect to you or your enterprise. I do, however, prefer to get things done in a timely fashion, and working directly with Elaine has proven to be highly effective.

I have left a message with the attorney who represents the property owner about this. I am also quite concerned about "west villains"

Tonight at 6:30pm the Westville~West Hills Community Management Team will meet at the NHPD substation on 329 Valley Street. We meet monthly to discuss quality of life issues- Elaine from LCI will be there as well as Lt. Marty Tchkarides, our police district manager, who both should be able to answer questions, especially on alleged gang activity. I have spoken w/ the Lt. about graffiti in my area (I'm on the other side of Fountain on Lawncrest)- we have different tags but they've been popping up a lot lately. The more we keep these issues top of mind with NHPD and LCI the more action that will be taken. Hope to see you there,
Andy

Please remove ASAP. Also see http://www.seeclickfix.com/issues/100678

Understood Andy. If an issue is posted on SeeClickFix and the email is sent directly to Elaine then same way you would email her is there a difference in the directness of the communication?

I have spoken with the owner of the property. She is concerned and will be taking steps to get this stuff painted over in short order. Now only the larger issue remains.

Ben- I completely see your point, and I think it's great that SCF can provide everyone with the opportunity to reach the appropriate folks responsible in gov't via email when they may not know whom to contact.

That being said, I prefer to go directly to the source when I can. And I am quite happy with the fact that I can directly contact Elaine, or Tom (alder) or Marty (cop), or Jim (TTP), or Howard (DPW), or Seb (same), and on and on. And I think it's important to share that with people, be it on your website, or at meetings throughout town. Not trying to undercut your business here, just trying to share some helpful info. And I definitely think that if we have an effective public servant who does her job spectacularly then we don't need to try and force her to change her ways.

She is out in her LCI area, you call her, she starts working on the issue immediately because she checks her voice mail often. Actually I believe she checks her voice mail about every hour or so. She doesn't have to run back downtown to check on click fix. When she is in the office she checks her email because we simply email her on her private work email. We don't have to go on any website to post things. We don't have to have click fix send her an email. We go to her directly. We love it this way and why fix something that is very efficient and has been the driving factor of her quick service to all of us. Besides Ben, we love talking to her and she loves talking to us. And by the way, she had contacted hours ago the people who do the removal and she has told several of us it should be done tomorrow if all goes smoothly. Click fix couldn't make that happen any quicker.

I spoke to the property owner today (she lives in NYC). She is concerned and indicated that she would be in contact with the property manager and have the graffiti removed asap. I hope that means by tomorrow. Not sure if coordination between LCI and the owner is needed.

But we are still left with the larger issue of what this represents. I don't want to over react but I fear this type of activity represents an influx or escalation of criminal activity and/or presence in th neighborhood. The "sales model" of the market, that includes underage beer sales and the sale of drug paraphernalia doesn't help things either.

Elaine and LCI are aware of this graffiti.

Of course, the property owner should remove it and sounds like she has promised to.

I would echo comments by Judith Caplan and Andy O. that LCI is very responsive. Reaching Elaine is a synch and she solves issues quickly.

I'm sure she receives the SCF alerts as surely as she receives phone calls and emails. Let's not speculate that she doesn't receive alerts through all the methods used to send them.

Everything seems to be working exactly as it should.

Thanks Judith,
I am really happy that your LCI Rep is so responsive. I meant no offense by suggesting that responding privately to one person was a bad thing. Its just not as effective as responding to the 118 people who have viewed this. As long as there are neighbors like you guys who let others know what they heard back the system works well and Elaine does not need to comment. You are right about that.

FYI, I spoke w/ our police Lt. at the community management team meeting last evening and he went after the meeting to look at the tagging, paying special attention to any potential relation to "organized" activity. He was going to get pics and pass them around to his officers as well. As soon as there's more I'll pass it on.

Any progress on this?

Tags like these should ideally be removed with hours, otherwise, more tags are invited.

The same sort of " mural " with basically the same symbols was painted all over the Bowl press box last week, Fortunately it was quickly removed.

Mark-
There's only one, possibly 2 contractors that do graffiti removal for the city. You're right that it should be removed quickly but with a cash-strapped budget these things take time. Ideally the owner would clean up their property quickly. Elaine/LCI stated yesterday evening that she was trying to get the painters out there today but it's not something she could gaurantee.
Tahnks

Hi Andy, leaving this type of graffiti around for more than a few hours encourages vandalism and therefore indirectly causes further property damage. Should citizens in the area take direct action and paint over the graffiti themselves as soon as they see it, with whatever paint they happen to have available? The contractor could come out later and put paint over that. Just wondering if this ever came up at the Management Team. As you know, in Downtown, the Town Green comes around and paints over graffiti often within a few hours of when it appears. Though the neighborhoods do not have a graffiti service like Downtown does, the same could be done if citizens were willing to take action themselves. Thanks.

We are experiencing a flurry of graffiti lately in Westville. Graffiti removed a week ago from a commercial building in the village has been replaced with new graffiti as of today. There was a flurry on several Westville Village commercial buildings in the past month. So there is someone new and very productive.

Someone that active might be caught. Commercial businesses with outdoor surveillance cameras -- please check your footage for our newest artiste.

The "sher" or "shar" creature is becoming quite annoying.

Someone from the neighborhood painted this over last night. The property owner will finish up this weekend.

Thanks for reporting, Mike!