Fining victims only

a last resort for city

Be it artistic, gang related or just plain nasty, graffiti is fast becoming a costly pain, an eyesore and a gross blight throughout the City of Auburn.

In an effort to deal with this scourge, the city’s Municipal Services Committee has directed the city’s legal department to stiffen existing rules that deal with graffiti.

Drawing heavily on ordinances from Federal Way and Tacoma, city officials hope to add tools to the criminal code to reduce incidents of graffiti by people under 18. One of these “tools” would create a new category of offense, making mere possession of graffiti instruments illegal when coupled with circumstances indicating an intent to use them. The crime is a gross misdemeanor in Auburn.

What concerned members of the city’s Municipal Services Committee on Monday, however, was finding ways to help graffiti’s victims paint over the mess without, if at all possible, making them pay up.

Auburn’s city code gives victims 15 days after they are served with a special abatement notice to deal with the graffiti, or the city will step in and do it at their expense. Those who don’t comply could be subject to a lien against their property.

City leaders, however, have never liked making the victim pay up: “One of the problems we face is none of us is very happy that a victim is also possibly being fined,” said Mayor Pete Lewis.

Beyond allowing the graffiti victim to out, buy the paint and do the work at their own expense, possible options include:

• Allowing the victim to obtain a voucher from the city for paint to do the work, or

• The city obtains a permission slip from the victim, allowing access to the property. City workers would then buy the paint in several basic colors and finish the job.

Those who failed to choose one of these three options and complete the work in 15 days still would be subject to a fine.

“I think it is appropriate that we have that fine in place if they refuse to do anything else. I think we need that, because if we don’t have it we’ve got the broken-window syndrome that just continues the problem,” Lewis said.

Assistant City Attorney Joe Beck emphasized that the city is not interested in penalizing anybody, it just wants the problem fixed.

“If we ever get to the point where we issue an infraction, the approach that I have always taken is that, ‘Hey, we’re giving you this infraction, but all we are really interested in is an abatement of the problem. So if you abate the problem, we’ll dismiss, reduce, make it go away,’” Beck said.

“… We never really get to the point where someone gets an infraction, has to pay it, and gets the full force of that punishment on them unless they just simply say, ‘I’m not going to do it, you can’t make me do it and I’m never going to do it.’ When we go down that road, that’s our final persuader,” Beck said.

“We don’t want four letter words in public view, and we don’t want gang graffiti, which incites activity,” declared Committee Chairman Gene Cerino. “We want those taken off immediately. There is no way to differentiate between that and artistic graffiti. I really think it’s important that this time element is very short. They have to make their mind up.”

Councilwoman Lynn Norman said a rigid, 15-day requirement, might not work for everybody, especially the elderly.

“Getting an announcement that you are going to do something on this, and you’ve got 15 days, and you’re a woman of 80 who lives on her own and has to organize someone to do it, it’s hard to get that message across that the city will help you,” Norman said.

“You have to be really clear with that. A 15-day deadline can be very intimidating to someone who’s on their own and relying on others to come out and paint that fence or that house or whatever it is. It’s throughout the city, but a lot of it goes on in some of the poorest neighborhoods,” Norman said.

Committee members agreed to work some time flexibility into the new rules.