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Democrat-run cities continue to fall prey to the consequences of the liberal policies pushed by these officials, though residents remain slow in making the connection here.
Which is not to say they don’t recognize the problems because they are forced to live with them in many cases, as seen with residents in Seattle who are inundated with graffiti.
“Like gray skies and rainfall, graffiti in the city of Seattle, Washington, is ubiquitous today,” Fox News reported. “Defaced public and private property can be seen everywhere — storefronts, apartment buildings, commercial vehicles, highways, bridges, street signs and recycling bins all bear the urban scrawl.”
A related disconnect here being the army of homeless — officials estimated more than 40,000 people were homeless in King County at some point in 2020. Seattle plans to spend $156 million to address homelessness in 2022, while Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is proposing to spend about $815 million. Yet, Democrats fail to grasp that subsidizing a problem is a sure-fire way to ensure the problem grows. And idle hands are the devil’s workshop.
With everything that doesn’t move being a fair target for graffiti, parents in Seattle are beginning to push back.
Ari Hoffman, a Seattle resident and parent of three children, who hosts “The Ari Hoffman Show” on Seattle’s KVI AM 570, said there’s more to it than meets the eye.
“Graffiti is not some dude writing ‘Jim was here,’” Hoffman 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.”
Vassie Skoulis, a mother of two and a homeowner who lives near the University of Washington, told Fox News residents have to “pay for property damage created by those who don’t want to be part of any community.
“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,” she said. “Residents must clean up garbage and vandalism in their neighborhood.”
Christine Villani has lived in Seattle for 30 years — she lives near the Capitol Hill neighborhood that was home to the ill-fated 2020 CHOP (Capitol Hill Occupied Protest) or CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) occupation — and she told the network that she 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,” Villani said. “It says to me that nobody cares, anything goes.”
Villani believes the graffiti “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.”
Seattle does have a “Find It, Fix It” mobile app that allows smartphone users to report graffiti to the city, but the city blames the pandemic for the recent increase.
“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, told Fox News, adding 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.”
The mobile app also allows residents to report other issues, to include abandoned vehicles and illegal dumping, with needles and syringes being a part of this.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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