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New Report Card Rates San Francisco's Cleanliness

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - A new audit by San Francisco's Controller suggested that city streets and sidewalks were a little cleaner than a year ago, but still not acceptable. The audit also cited graffiti on private property as a growing problem.

KCBS' Barbara Taylor Reports:

The report took into consideration tree maintenance, which was declared considerably improved this year. Trash cans weren't, by and large, overflowing the way they used to.

"The streets and the sidewalks have gotten a little bit cleaner in this current year from the prior year," summed up Keith DeMartini, who worked on the audit.

Still, he warned that city streets and sidewalks were still not as clean as they should be. On average, the report found between 5 and 15 pieces of littler per 100 ft.

Graffiti continued to be a problem.

"The newspaper stands that are on the corners of the sidewalks, those tend to have quite a bit of graffiti," said DeMartini. "Those tend to have quite a bit of graffiti as well as private buildings that are on various routes."

According to DeMartini, workers documented an average of more than 15 graffiti incidents per block.

Still, the report suggested that San Francisco's streets, overall, were the cleanest they've been in three years.

That's, in part, because of aggressive anti-litter efforts.

"The litter counts in the commercial corridors, specifically the clean corridor routes that DPW focuses a lot of their cleaning efforts on, tend to be a little dirtier."

Mayor Gavin Newsom championed the report. He declared it a sign that, despite budget cuts, San Francisco was able to effectively and efficiently address street and sidewalk blight.

(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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