Two weeks ago, 67 volunteers painted over graffiti and cleaned-up sites on the East Side and in the South End.

According to Safe Streets, here are the results of the effort May 30:

* Area 1: 19 total sites, including 10 homes, one church, one retaining wall and seven utility poles.

* Area 2: 10 total sites, including six homes, two businesses and two utility boxes.

* Area 3: Nine total sites, including two homes, a pedestrian bridge and six utility poles.

* Area 4: 12 total sites, including eight homes, three concrete blocks and a wooden barricade.

The City of Tacoma is sponsoring a citywide clean-up Saturday.

"The clean sweep event is an opportunity for our community to come together and take pride in Tacoma's neighborhoods through cleanups, graffiti removal and open space cleanups," a press release states.

Officials selected five sites for cleanup. The locations were chosen based on crime, nuisance, overgrowth and graffiti data along with information about other clean ups this year.

The following will take place from 9 a.m. to noon:

Central District Neighborhood Cleanup (6th Avenue to South 12th Street, Sprague Street to Orchard Street).

Open Space Cleanup at Garfield Gulch and Julia's Gulch.

Graffiti Removal in Northeast Tacoma.

Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) Property Security Evaluations (near 6th Avenue – South 8th to North 8th streets, from Steele to Alder streets).

The PAC/YAK neighborhood cleanup will take place Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The boundaries for that cleanup are Pacific Avenue to Yakima Avenue, South 64th to South 72nd streets.

Afterward, volunteers are invited to a celebration from noon to 3 p.m. at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. The event is for all volunteers who've picked up garbage and debris during a neighborhood or clean up this year. Volunteers get admission to the zoo, a hot dog and soda.

For more information, call Community Relations Office at (253) 591-5054 or visit the Web site.

Safe Streets community mobilizer Darren Pen reports that a group of volunteers painted over 300 yards of graffiti this weekend.

The group concentrated along the railroad tracks and Highway 7/South 38th Street interchange.

"If you drive through today or tomorrow all over 300 yards of graffiti is gone for now," Pen wrote in an e-mail.

(Photos provided by Darren Pen)

If you haven't seen it already, here's the link to Jason Hagey's Sunday profile of Jeanie Peterson.

Jeanie is a well known, well respected and longtime Hilltop activist. She - others on the Hilltop - have had great success over the years in cleaning up their neighborhood and keeping it clean.

She's got the ear of several city leaders because of her dedication, passion and ability to come to the table with researched ideas to problems. She's also quite the character - she walks around barefoot and has no fears about confronting the "knuckleheads" she sees out on her 2 a.m. walks through the neighborhood.

The East Side and South Tacoma areas have been selected as the next neighborhoods for the city's Community-based Services program.

The city announced the selection this morning. Those areas include the Dometop, Ling LAWG(Lincoln Area Watch Group), Lincoln South and Whitman neighborhoods.

The area will get the dedicated attention of a code enforcement officer, a Tacoma police community liaison officer and a program development specialist. Other city services also will be ready to help.

The city team will look to partner with the community to reduce crime, eliminate blight and increase community education and involvement.

City officials are planning a kickoff meeting in the new area June 2. Community cleanups will take place in June, July and August.

This will be the fifth CBS area in the city.

The city has more information about the program and the neighborhoods its in here.

A blog reader has asked that I provide links to a couple of crime-related news stories that have appeared in the pages of The News Tribune.

Gang-related graffiti is on the rise throughout Tacoma and parts of Pierce County. In an effort to combat it, 270 volunteers helped paint over the messages last weekend. Read more about the issue here.

Here's a graffiti removal tip sheet from the City of Tacoma.

Our Pierce County reporter, David Wickert, took a look at road rage in an in-depth piece that ran in Sunday's News Tribune.

According to the story, the Washington State Patrol issued 9,810 aggressive driving-related citations in Pierce and Thurston counties in 2007. That's up 63 percent in just two years.

Nearly 250 volunteers have signed to up to paint over gang-related graffiti in Tacoma, Lakewood and unincorporated Pierce County.

The men and women will be divided up into 50 teams. Each team will be sent out - with paint, brushes and sack lunches in hand - to attack the festering graffiti problem.

In Tacoma, volunteers will meet at 11:30 a.m. at the South End Neighborhood Center, 7802 S. L St. They'll hit pre-identified areas on the East Side, South End, North End and downtown in Tacoma as well as Spanaway, Parkland, Midland and Bethel in Pierce County.

In Lakewood, volunteers will gather at 10 a.m. at the police station, 5504 112th St. S.W.

A rally will feature speeches from Safe Streets Executive Director Priscilla Lisicich and Rebecca Lambert, who's son was killed by gang members at Sprinker Recreation Center in 2005. Cliff Nelson was beaten and shot.

Today (Monday, April 28) is the deadline to register for a countywide graffiti cleanup.

Volunteers armed with paint brushes and paint will be heading out to spots in Tacoma, Lakewood and unincorporated Pierce County on Saturday, May 3 for "Operation Graffiti Cover-Up."

If you have a team together, register with Safe Streets (253-272-6824 or rkhlom@safest.org) by the end of the day. Other volunteers can wait for a team assignment on the day of the event.

Volunteers will get paint, brushes and a sack lunch.

Members of the Edison neighborhood will be out Saturday, cleaning up their streets.

Residents who live or own property or businesses between South 56th to 66th and South Oakes to Washington streets are invited to participate.

Volunteers will met at Edison Elementary School, 5830 S. Pine St., at 10 a.m. Saturday. The cleanup is scheduled to last until 2 p.m.

They'll be looking for trash, televisions, yard waste, blackberry bushes, appliances, tires and metals.

LeMay Mobile Shredding will be on-site to shred documents. There's a limit of up to three grocery bags full of said documents per household or business.

The community clean up is part of the city's community-based services program. The Edison neighborhood is one of the original four service areas.

Tacoma City Manager Eric Anderson has an ambitious new goal - reduce crime in the city by 50 percent in the next 14 months.

That's right. He met last week with 250 city employees to talk about how that goal might be accomplished and the group came up with 28 objectives to reach this mighty goal. The objectives should be published this week.

Anderson recognizes that his goal might not be reached.

“You can sit in a chair and reduce crime by 6 percent," Anderson told News Tribune reporter Jason Hagey in a recent interview. "I said, ‘Let’s reduce it by 50 percent. Let’s do something significant, a quantum leap.’ I don’t know if we can do it.”

City employees will be reaching out to the public for input on how to accomplish this mission.

But here's your chance to start that conversation early. What does Tacoma, its residents and its employees need to do to reduce crime?

(Anderson wants to do this within the existing budget so adding 100 police officers tomorrow isn't an option.)

The News Tribune is running a Hot Button poll on this story.

Piggybacking on Stacey's post about the upcoming graffiti clean up, I recently came across this YouTube video of Tacoma gang taggings.

Disclaimer: the rap soundtrack contains bad language.

Safe Streets is organizing a countywide graffiti cover-up and needs more hands on deck.

Operation Graffiti Cover-Up is planned for May 3. Teams of volunteers will be painting over graffiti throughout Tacoma, unincorporated Pierce County and Lakewood. (The sites will be identified beforehand.)

Paint, brushes and a sack lunch will be provided to anyone that's interested in joining the effort.

To register, contact Safe Streets at 253-272-6824 or e-mail rkhlom@safest.org by Monday, April 28.

On the day of the event, volunteers will meet at 11:30 a.m. at the South End Neighborhood Center, 7802 S. L St. Folks from Safe Streets block groups, the Youth Leading Change chapters, Russell Investments and State Farm Insurance are already lined up to help.

And while we're on the topic of graffiti, I am working on a story about the widespread graffiti and tagging problems in the city.

Have you been tagged? Have you see problems in the neighborhood where you live?

Send an e-mail about your experience to me at stacey.mulick@thenewstribune.com.