City of Oakland Public Works Agency addressed this issue on 08/30/2012, service request # 422840.

Job half-done. The sign was removed, but the post - also a target of taggers - remains standing.

The best answer is to stop the graffiti criminals before they strike instead of having to run after them and cleaning up their messes. The city spends millions in cleaning up after these social miscasts. The city should only have to maintain property because of weather and weather related elements over time. This is an expense many suburban cities don" have to deal with. Why does Oakland tolerate this?

San Francisco and other large cities have the same problem - it's not just Oakland. The ideal thing would be to catch them and have them work off their sentences by cleaning whatever they're responsible for - and more.