Leftists are destroying our country (link below)
LINK: Like gray skies and rainfall, graffiti in the city of Seattle, Washington, is ubiquitous today.
Defaced public and private property can be seen everywhere — on storefronts, apartment buildings, commercial vehicles, highways, bridges, street signs and recycling bins.
Nothing is spared. Everything appears to be fair game, including magazine display racks, utility poles — even historic sites. Taggers, apparently, do not discriminate.
Now, concerned parents and other residents are speaking out about the graffiti overgrowth.
"Graffiti is not some dude writing ‘Jim was here,’" Ari Hoffman, a Seattle resident and parent of three children, told Fox News Digital.
"Graffiti is about marking territory, by gangs or dealers, or even by people living on the streets, who are being used for criminal activity," Hoffman added.
Hoffman is host of "The Ari Hoffman Show" on Seattle's KVI AM 570 and a former candidate for the Seattle City Council.
Vassie Skoulis, a mother of two and a Seattle homeowner, said, "Seattle has chosen to punish its residents who desire to live peacefully and respectfully with their neighbors and decided to stop enforcing rules, policies and laws."
"Residents must clean up garbage and vandalism in their neighborhood," she also said.
Residents must also "pay for property damage created by those who don't want to be part of any community," she said. Skoulis and her family live near the University of Washington.
Christine Villani, a 30-year resident of Seattle, said that she, too, has noticed an increase in graffiti over the past couple of years.
"I find it demoralizing, and I feel like I live in a war zone," she said. "It says to me that nobody cares, anything goes."
Villani lives near the Capitol Hill neighborhood, close to downtown. This area was the site of the ill-fated CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest) or CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) during the notorious 2020 "summer of love" riots, as then-Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan called them (later walking back that description).
The graffiti, Villani also said, "is an invitation to crime and more degradation in the environment. I don’t think enough is being done, and this contributes to the increasing dystopia that is Seattle now," she said.
To help combat the Emerald City's graffiti problem, Seattle has a "Find It, Fix It" mobile app. It's a tool for smartphone users to report graffiti to the city — as well as other issues such as abandoned vehicles and illegal dumping. Items dumped include needles and syringes.
While the app was launched in 2013, it appears the need for this reporting tool — along with a "Graffiti Report" phone line that any resident can call — is greater now than before.
"There has been an increase in graffiti reports since the beginning of the [COVID-19] pandemic," Sabrina Register, public information officer for Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), said in an email.
"SPU speaks on behalf of the city's municipal code and graffiti abatement efforts, which are supported by the mayor’s office," Register also said.
"Mayor Harrell has made clear his commitment to addressing graffiti."
Mayor Bruce Harrell, elected in November 2021, took office in January. He ran on a pro-police platform.
SPU said Seattle received 16,625 reports of graffiti on public and private property in 2021. That's a sharp increase from 2019, when some 13,000 complaints were registered.
Some 500,791 square feet of graffiti was "abated" by SPU’s Graffiti Rangers team in 2021. That's roughly the equivalent of 10 1/2 football fields, Register said.
The city of Seattle defines abatement as "the removal or reduction/mitigation of writing, painting or drawing on public or private property without permission."
"Graffiti has gotten really bad in the city," Paul Proios, manager of the popular 14 Carrot Café in Seattle’s Eastlake neighborhood, said. "For the first time ever, graffiti is marring the Hines Public Market building — a historical site — where our business is located."
In his opinion, "Seattle is a shadow of its former self. It is riddled with crime and graffiti — and not the cool graffiti that people call [street] art. [This] is the graffiti tagged by thugs," Proios also said.
The SPU's Register, meanwhile, did not say what might be fueling today's surge in tagging.
Instead, she said, "SPU compiles data on graffiti reports and abatement but does not work to determine factors behind any reporting increase or decrease."
Said Ari Hoffman on this point, "Criminals do not want to be hassled, so they go elsewhere when the law is enforced. Any time a building is vacant, even for a few days, it is tagged almost immediately."
In tech-savvy Seattle, iPhone users are encouraged to become part of the solution by downloading the app from the App Store. Android users can access the app from the Google Play Store.
"With ‘Find It, Fix It,’ reporting an issue is as easy as snapping a photo with your smartphone, adding detailed information, and hitting submit," the city’s website tells citizens.
"The map's ‘drag and drop’ feature or the phone's own technology can be used to pinpoint the location," it also says.
"Customer reports of graffiti through the ‘Find It, Fix It’ app have helped SPU Graffiti Rangers quickly identify areas with multiple graffiti that can then be abated," Register explained.
Currently, the Graffiti Rangers team in Seattle consists of six SPU staff members who remove graffiti throughout the city, including in the neighborhoods of Freemont and Ballard to the north, and in Little Saigon and the Central District to the south.
The team aims to remove graffiti on public property within 10 business days — and within 24 hours or less for hate graffiti, according to the Seattle.gov website.
Register told Fox News Digital, "Earlier this month, antisemitic graffiti was reported on the side of a convenience store and across the street from Jewish Family Service of Seattle. SPU Graffiti Rangers quickly responded and abated the graffiti within 24 hours."
As for private property owners, they are the ones held responsible for removing graffiti when vandals strike, according to Seattle’s Graffiti Nuisance Ordinance.
"We realize property owners and businesses are victims of a crime and offer resources to assist in removal free of charge," Register also noted.
On its government website, the city of Seattle says, "When graffiti appears on your home, apartment building, or business, take a photo to document for insurance purposes."
It adds, "After the police document the vandalism, remove or paint over the graffiti immediately."
It also shares detailed advice with residents for making their property as "graffiti-resistant" as possible.
Residents should consider "installing improved lighting and flashing motion-sensor lighting, growing vines or appropriate vegetation to cover unpainted retaining walls, installing a graffiti-resistant coating on your walls, keeping matching paint on hand to quickly paint out graffiti, and installing cameras to monitor activity on your property," according to the website.
It notes as well that the city's Graffiti Nuisance Ordinance "requires property owners to remove graffiti in a timely manner."
LINK: Like gray skies and rainfall, graffiti in the city of Seattle, Washington, is ubiquitous today.
Defaced public and private property can be seen everywhere — on storefronts, apartment buildings, commercial vehicles, highways, bridges, street signs and recycling bins.
Nothing is spared. Everything appears to be fair game, including magazine display racks, utility poles — even historic sites. Taggers, apparently, do not discriminate.
Now, concerned parents and other residents are speaking out about the graffiti overgrowth.
"Graffiti is not some dude writing ‘Jim was here,’" Ari Hoffman, a Seattle resident and parent of three children, told Fox News Digital.
"Graffiti is about marking territory, by gangs or dealers, or even by people living on the streets, who are being used for criminal activity," Hoffman added.
Hoffman is host of "The Ari Hoffman Show" on Seattle's KVI AM 570 and a former candidate for the Seattle City Council.
Vassie Skoulis, a mother of two and a Seattle homeowner, said, "Seattle has chosen to punish its residents who desire to live peacefully and respectfully with their neighbors and decided to stop enforcing rules, policies and laws."
"Residents must clean up garbage and vandalism in their neighborhood," she also said.
Residents must also "pay for property damage created by those who don't want to be part of any community," she said. Skoulis and her family live near the University of Washington.
Christine Villani, a 30-year resident of Seattle, said that she, too, has noticed an increase in graffiti over the past couple of years.
"I find it demoralizing, and I feel like I live in a war zone," she said. "It says to me that nobody cares, anything goes."
Villani lives near the Capitol Hill neighborhood, close to downtown. This area was the site of the ill-fated CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest) or CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) during the notorious 2020 "summer of love" riots, as then-Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan called them (later walking back that description).
The graffiti, Villani also said, "is an invitation to crime and more degradation in the environment. I don’t think enough is being done, and this contributes to the increasing dystopia that is Seattle now," she said.
To help combat the Emerald City's graffiti problem, Seattle has a "Find It, Fix It" mobile app. It's a tool for smartphone users to report graffiti to the city — as well as other issues such as abandoned vehicles and illegal dumping. Items dumped include needles and syringes.
While the app was launched in 2013, it appears the need for this reporting tool — along with a "Graffiti Report" phone line that any resident can call — is greater now than before.
"There has been an increase in graffiti reports since the beginning of the [COVID-19] pandemic," Sabrina Register, public information officer for Seattle Public Utilities (SPU), said in an email.
"SPU speaks on behalf of the city's municipal code and graffiti abatement efforts, which are supported by the mayor’s office," Register also said.
"Mayor Harrell has made clear his commitment to addressing graffiti."
Mayor Bruce Harrell, elected in November 2021, took office in January. He ran on a pro-police platform.
SPU said Seattle received 16,625 reports of graffiti on public and private property in 2021. That's a sharp increase from 2019, when some 13,000 complaints were registered.
Some 500,791 square feet of graffiti was "abated" by SPU’s Graffiti Rangers team in 2021. That's roughly the equivalent of 10 1/2 football fields, Register said.
The city of Seattle defines abatement as "the removal or reduction/mitigation of writing, painting or drawing on public or private property without permission."
"Graffiti has gotten really bad in the city," Paul Proios, manager of the popular 14 Carrot Café in Seattle’s Eastlake neighborhood, said. "For the first time ever, graffiti is marring the Hines Public Market building — a historical site — where our business is located."
In his opinion, "Seattle is a shadow of its former self. It is riddled with crime and graffiti — and not the cool graffiti that people call [street] art. [This] is the graffiti tagged by thugs," Proios also said.
The SPU's Register, meanwhile, did not say what might be fueling today's surge in tagging.
Instead, she said, "SPU compiles data on graffiti reports and abatement but does not work to determine factors behind any reporting increase or decrease."
Said Ari Hoffman on this point, "Criminals do not want to be hassled, so they go elsewhere when the law is enforced. Any time a building is vacant, even for a few days, it is tagged almost immediately."
In tech-savvy Seattle, iPhone users are encouraged to become part of the solution by downloading the app from the App Store. Android users can access the app from the Google Play Store.
"With ‘Find It, Fix It,’ reporting an issue is as easy as snapping a photo with your smartphone, adding detailed information, and hitting submit," the city’s website tells citizens.
"The map's ‘drag and drop’ feature or the phone's own technology can be used to pinpoint the location," it also says.
"Customer reports of graffiti through the ‘Find It, Fix It’ app have helped SPU Graffiti Rangers quickly identify areas with multiple graffiti that can then be abated," Register explained.
Currently, the Graffiti Rangers team in Seattle consists of six SPU staff members who remove graffiti throughout the city, including in the neighborhoods of Freemont and Ballard to the north, and in Little Saigon and the Central District to the south.
The team aims to remove graffiti on public property within 10 business days — and within 24 hours or less for hate graffiti, according to the Seattle.gov website.
Register told Fox News Digital, "Earlier this month, antisemitic graffiti was reported on the side of a convenience store and across the street from Jewish Family Service of Seattle. SPU Graffiti Rangers quickly responded and abated the graffiti within 24 hours."
As for private property owners, they are the ones held responsible for removing graffiti when vandals strike, according to Seattle’s Graffiti Nuisance Ordinance.
"We realize property owners and businesses are victims of a crime and offer resources to assist in removal free of charge," Register also noted.
On its government website, the city of Seattle says, "When graffiti appears on your home, apartment building, or business, take a photo to document for insurance purposes."
It adds, "After the police document the vandalism, remove or paint over the graffiti immediately."
It also shares detailed advice with residents for making their property as "graffiti-resistant" as possible.
Residents should consider "installing improved lighting and flashing motion-sensor lighting, growing vines or appropriate vegetation to cover unpainted retaining walls, installing a graffiti-resistant coating on your walls, keeping matching paint on hand to quickly paint out graffiti, and installing cameras to monitor activity on your property," according to the website.
It notes as well that the city's Graffiti Nuisance Ordinance "requires property owners to remove graffiti in a timely manner."
