Riverhead BID fights back: Graffiti coming down, security cameras going up

Graffiti began coming off downtown buildings this morning.

The Riverhead Business Improvement District is paying a private contractor to clean graffiti off  buildings within the BID, BID Management Association president Raymond Pickersgill said Monday, as he watched workers clean graffiti from a wall on the former West Marine building on East Main Street.

The wall faces the recently reopened Riverhead Diner and Grill. Grill owner Liz Strebel was also on hand to watch workers clean the markings, which have been on the wall since she re-opened the restaurant in December. She said she is ecstatic the wall will finally be cleaned up.

Riverhead Serv-Pro is doing the cleanup and will repaint cleaned areas as needed, Picksergill said. They will use graffiti-resistant paint to do so, he said. The company agreed to donate most of the cost of its labor, and is charging $750 for the work, including all materials, Pickersgill said.

The BID president said the organization plans to keep on top of it, which promises to be a daunting task. Another MS-13 tag appeared this weekend on the shuttered comfort station on West Main Street, adjacent to the site where a community garden is planned.

MS-13 is a notoriously violent criminal gang that originated in Los Angeles and has spread across the country in the form of independently operating cliques, according to an FBI threat assessment. Its members are generally of Central American ethnicity, the FBI says.

An MS-13 tag was spray-painted on the side of the First Congregational Church on East Main Street in February. Riverhead Police Chief David Hegermiller says the tags are not necessarily the territorial markings of gang members. (See March 31 story “Downtown business owners call for action,” about the recent uptick in graffiti around Riverhead.)

Graffiti is just one of the “quality of life” crimes the BID is taking aim at with another new initiative Pickersgill said will soon be undertaken.

Wireless surveillance cameras will be installed in the Riverfront parking lot and in Grangebel Park, Pickersgill said. They will be capable of providing a live feed of what’s going on and the images will also be recorded.

“This will help the police catch these culprits,” Pickersgill said.

The BID will pay about $30,000 for the cameras and recording devices, Pickersgill said. The measure still needs final approval of the BID board of directors, but Pickersgill said the group supports the idea.

The Riverhead Business Improvement was established in the 1980s to promote business downtown. It is a special tax district in which owners of properties within its boundaries pay a separate assessment to fund the BID’s activities. The BID management association is a not-for-profit corporation that proposes an annual budget for the BID and administers BID projects and programs, subject to the approval of the Riverhead Town Board.