New London ― The city for the first time will use a private company to help address an uptick in graffiti on downtown buildings, light posts and other surfaces shoppers regularly stroll past.

The City Council on Monday approved using $25,000 in federal pandemic relief funding to hire an on-call service, “We Can Do,” to paint over, scrape off and otherwise refurbish vandalized property in the City Center District.

“The idea is, we call the service and within 48 hours they’re out there taking care of the problem,” said Felix Reyes, the city’s director of economic development and planning, on Friday.

Downtown graffiti mitigation was previously the responsibility of the City Center District, where property owners pay an extra 1% in city taxes to cover the cost of beautification efforts in an area that includes the busy State and Bank streets.

Group Treasurer Barbara Neff said she’s aware of several graffiti tags not far from her State Street-based production company.

“Previously, we’d have had to email or visit a business and get signed releases to paint over the graffiti,” she said, noting graffiti and related damage tends to reflect poorly on an affected area. “It’s great to see the city stepping up and handling this issue.”

Reyes, who credited Mayor Michael Passero with the beautification initiative, said he anticipates most of the graffiti reports will be relayed from affected property owners to the city’s blight officer.

“I expect we’ll wait until we get a few such reports and then let the vendor know to head to an area,” Reyes said. “Right now, we’re looking to focus on those long-standing areas of concern downtown, though that doesn’t mean we won’t go out beyond that area, too.”

Reyes said he hopes that if graffiti is quickly erased, the “bad players” responsible for the act will be less likely to re-tag the cleaned areas. He said the funds should cover about a year’s worth of on-call clean-up work.

“It’s part of the holistic approach we’re taking to revitalizing downtown,” Reyes said. “We’ve got new sidewalks and lighting, so cleanliness is a big part of attracting people downtown.”

j.penney@theday.com