Mayor Tommy Jones and Councilwoman Elizabeth Stone, both of whom are teachers, are encouraging student clubs at Los Ba&#241;os High School to give up a few hours during spring break to clean up their community.</p><p>Jones and Stone are hoping that by the end of today club advisers will tell them if their groups plan to participate in graffiti cleanup in town April 7.</p><p>"I thought it's coming from the youth, we might as well get youth to clean it up," Jones said of his initial idea to involve teenagers in graffiti removal efforts.</p><p>Stone agrees with Jones.</p><p>"They (teens) are the closest ones to the gang situation so if they have a say in cleaning up the graffiti they'll have something to say if it comes back," she said.</p><p>As incentive to participate,teens will receive free pizza the day of the cleanup and a letter from the mayor recognizing their community service. The letters are designed for use when the students apply for scholarships and admission to colleges.</p><p>Jones said the offer is not limited to the high school clubs, any student can volunteer.</p><p>"This is for any kid in town," Jones said. "We want a massive (turnout)."</p><p>Jones and Stone are both hopeful that the high school students can decrease the amount of graffiti in town by exerting some peer pressure on teens involved in gangs.</p><p>The graffiti problem, particularly gang graffiti, has been an issue in town for years. The local police volunteers group and concerned community members have frequently asked citizens to assist with painting over graffiti. They've often received very poor results.</p><p>Los Ba&#241;os Police Department Volunteer Norm Donovan said fear is the main reason.</p><p>"It's the same thing as when we ask permission to paint over it. They are afraid the gangs will retaliate," Donovan said. "We had a woman on G Street who doesn't want us painting over it because the gangs will think she reported them. The gangs are only as powerful as we let them be."</p><p>Local resident Kent Sandhagen has been organizing graffiti removal efforts for the past 18 months. Despite admitting to being upset that he was not invited to be part of the mayor's meeting to discuss getting teens involved in the cleanup, Sandhagen said he believes it is a great idea.</p><p>"Everybody who's gone out and did volunteer painting, you feel great," Sandhagen said.</p><p>He said that youth organizations like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts can also be brought in to help with painting. He said he just wishes he could get more people to come out to help.</p><p>"Two out of 38 churches in town have helped us paint. Where are the churches? If the churches went out for one weekend a year we'd have 38 weeks covered," he said.</p><p>Sandhagen is a big proponent of enforcing vandalism laws such as making children clean up all the graffiti at a location they were found guilty of tagging, and making parents do clean up as well in some cases.</p><p>Jones said he wants to turn next month's cleanup into an annual event. He said he also hopes that students will want to volunteer to paint over graffiti even when they are getting nothing in return.</p><p>Jones said his ultimate goal is to promote the police department's anonymous tipline to the youth so they can help law enforcement catch the people who are putting up the graffiti.