CITY OF SEATTLE
ORDINANCE __________________
COUNCIL BILL __________________
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AN ORDINANCE relating to graffiti nuisance enforcement; transferring authority to enforce the City's graffiti nuisance code from the Director of Seattle Public Utilities to the Superintendent of the Department of Parks and Recreation; and amending Section 10.07.010 of the Seattle Municipal Code.
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WHEREAS, in April 1996, the City Council passed Ordinance 118082, which required the removal of graffiti in order to protect the public health, safety and welfare, declaring that property may become a nuisance owing to the failure of responsible parties to remove graffiti after having been requested to do so by the City, establishing a process for voluntary or involuntary clean-up of graffiti and the recovery of public clean-up expenses, creating civil remedies, and adding a new chapter to Title 10 of the Seattle Municipal Code; and
WHEREAS, Ordinance 118082 established that the Director of the City's solid waste utility be provided the responsibility to investigate potential graffiti nuisance property and enforce graffiti nuisance code; and
WHEREAS, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the City experienced a significant increase in the number of reported graffiti tagging on public and private property; and
WHEREAS, in March 2021, the City launched the Clean City initiative, which combined a suite of enhanced and expanded cleaning efforts by Seattle Parks and Recreation, Seattle Public Utilities, and the Seattle Department of Transportation, including graffiti removal to help mitigate the increase in tagging during the COVID-19 pandemic; and
WHEREAS, by the end of 2021, the reports of graffiti had increased by 50 percent since 2019, with 19,700 reports in 2021 up from 13,000 reports in 2019; and
WHEREAS, in October 2022, Mayor Harrell announced his One Seattle Graffiti Plan to address this surge of graffiti through six major pillars; and
WHEREAS, one of the six major pillars in the One Seatt...
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