When it comes to painting, Tony Jones has just one color in his palette: graffiti gray.

“So far this spring, we’ve gone through 10 gallons,” he said.

Jones, the community service coordinator for Douglas County, is the man people call when they need graffiti removed or covered with paint.

He’s been busy in recent weeks because of a campaign by police to seek out graffiti and document it instead of waiting for property owners to report it.

“The reason that graffiti should be important to the community is that it lowers property values,” said Jones, an employee of the Community Corrections office. “It sends out messages to visitors to Lawrence that we’ve got problems. In my mind, it represents lack of discipline or respect. We want to have our best face for people who visit. We don’t want it to look like a trashy town.”

Lawrence Police officers last month went through the downtown area and documented dozens of examples of graffiti, most of it in alleyways and on utility boxes.

“Before, we were waiting for people to call us on graffiti, and we were acting in a reactive manner,” said Sgt. Dan Ward, a Lawrence Police spokesman. “The theory is, if you can get it cleaned up, get it cleaned up quickly and keep it clean, it will prevent other graffiti from occurring.”

Once property owners are notified of the graffiti by police, they’re required to remove it within two weeks.

A piece of graffiti taunts the owner of Strong's Antiques, 1025 Massachusetts, which the owner, Gary Strong, presumes was painted by the same individual who spray painted the wall months before.

It’s an approach that may save residents from having to report their neighbors for unaddressed graffiti.

“It’s kind of like sidewalks: You’ve got to tattle on your neighbor to get anything done,” said Jodi Wente, coordinator for the Oread Neighborhood Assn.

Wente said that after members of the neighborhood group brought up graffiti as a concern at their January meeting, she drove through some alleys and was surprised by how much she saw.

“You don’t have to look long before you find some,” she said.

Some of the recent graffiti is political. Much is the result of “tagging” – people wanting to leave their stylized name in as many places as possible. A small percentage appears to have been left by gang members, Ward said.

“Out of all the graffiti that we have documented so far, very few reports have been found to be gang-related,” Ward said. “(Officers) take a photo. The photos are then reviewed by detectives to determine if it is gang-related or not so they can track it.”

If property owners don’t want to pay for the removal themselves – something that can start at about $100 for a power-washing – they can call Jones at 832-5354. He arranges to supply volunteer labor in the form of people on probation or diversion who need to work off community service hours.

He also works with local businesses that donate leftover paint. In some cases, the graffiti can be removed with a power washer, but most often it’s covered with a gray rectangle.

“It’s never a custom-mixed color,” he said. “I can’t match someone’s paint.”