posted 02/11/10 08:03 PM | updated 02/11/10 08:03 PM
Featured Post! | Views: 322 | Comments : 2 | Community

Graffiti in Eastlake: Where are the problem spots?

I'm working on a project with other neighborhood bloggers that will focus on the graffiti problem around Seattle.

I recently wrote about graffiti on the new I-5 noise walls along Harvard Avenue E. The Washington State Department of Transportation says that graffiti on the freeway side of the wall is their responsibility. They quickly painted over the Harvard Avenue tags.

If the graffiti faces the street, call the Seattle Department of Transportation. You can report graffiti to the SDOT on its Web site. The WSDOT also has a site for reporting graffiti.

How bad a problem is graffiti in Eastlake? Where else do you see graffiti in the neighborhood? Do you ever clean it up or paint it over? Does your business have a graffiti problem? What should the city do about graffiti painters? Whose responsibility should it be to clean up graffiti?

Put your responses in the comments here or e-mail me at curtmilton (at) comcast.net. Thanks for your help!

Graffiti
Hey Curt. It's John McCoy. I actually cover the graffiti budget as part of my work with the City.

The website link you put in is the right one, but it's actually Seattle Public Utilities that manages the bulk of graffiti clean up in the City.

SPU's "Graffiti Rangers" (paid for by tax revenue rather than utility rate revenue for legal reasons) roam the City on a regular schedule cleaning most surfaces. The main dispatch function and the website you linked to are housed in SPU. They may dispatch out to SDOT for some things (like graffiti on a Stop sign, for example, since SDOT may need to replace the sign). SPU will also coordinate with other agencies (e.g. WSDOT, Libraries, Seattle Center, the Parks department) and work with private property owners who have been tagged.

If you report graffiti on City property to the city website, they try to clean it within 6 working days (i.e. within one of their six-day citywide cleaning cycles). If they have to coordinate with WSDOT or spend time researching who the heck owns a particular piece of property, then it can take longer.

Hope that's useful.
Comment by jjmccoy
5 months ago
( 0 votes )
Graffiti Jackals
Curt:

I think you are on to something with some sort of anti-grafitti blogger network. But we need to concentrate on convictions rather than cover-ups. We've got a small number of grafitti gangs whose recreational lifestyle is defacing our city. We've got a City Attorney who understands that grafitti is pre-meditated vandalism worth prosecuting. We need Seattle Police to create and maintain a Vandal's Archive so one apprehension can lead to multiple convictions. And we need government grafitti reporting systems to provide feedback loops so that citizen involvement is regularly validated.
Grafitti as a cultural attraction has played itself out. It time the left-over miscreants who cause most of the remaining mess are helped into criminal retirement.
Comment by waterton
5 months ago
( 0 votes )
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