Working for you, CBS 8 reached out to the City of San Diego and MTS to find out who is responsible for removing the graffiti on the buildings and the stone wall.

SAN DIEGO — For the past five years, Bay Ho residents’ usual drive along Morena Boulevard near Costco has been overshadowed by graffiti. They say no one is taking responsibility to remove it, and now, they want answers.

Behind the train tracks, building after building has been tagged.

Mark Heinze has lived in the neighborhood for years and has watched the graffiti spread.

“Across from Costco, when I was leaving Costco, I noticed, ‘oh, there’s a giant graffiti probably about 30 feet high.’ And now there must be six buildings covered with graffiti,” He said. “And of course, now they’ve started spraying the stone walls.”

Frustrated, Heinze and his neighbors turned to the city.

“I actually wrote in the Get It Done app three different times over three years, and they kept marking it resolved. And I said, ‘How is it resolved?’ And they said, ‘Well, it’s not the city’s responsibility. It’s MTS,’ which is the trolley,” Heinze said.

But when he contacted MTS, they told him it was the city’s responsibility.

“So I spoke to the city again, and they said, it’s just too dangerous to work that close to the tracks. Well, the graffiti artist- they did a pretty good job of working there,” Heinze said.

That leaves residents wondering: who is responsible?

“We’re kind of stuck here with no response. And everyone writes to Get It Done, and it always says resolved, but there’s no change,” said Heinze.

CBS 8 reached out to the City of San Diego. The city said Heinze’s most recent Get It Done request from June 2024 is still “in process,” and staff are reviewing it.

The city also told CBS 8 that they are working on getting answers about how to deal with the large graffiti tags on commercial buildings.

According to the city’s Get It Done website, graffiti on city-owned property is removed by the city. However, private and commercial property owners are responsible for removing graffiti on their own property. Code compliance officers notify owners when graffiti is reported and follow up until it is removed.

MTS, meanwhile, told CBS 8 the locations in question are not on their property. They provided a map showing that the graffiti is more than 100 feet away from their property line. CBS 8 is still waiting for clarification on whether the nearby stone wall belongs to MTS.

Heinze said building owners could also step in.

“The owners of the buildings can also take some responsibility, maybe a joint project. A lot of us in the neighborhood are willing to help,” he said.

CBS 8 will update this story as more answers come in from the City of San Diego and MTS.