SEATTLE — Seattle parking meters are being tagged with graffiti and downtown property owners are helping clean up the mess.
Seattle started installing pay stations for parking eight years ago and there are about 400 in the city. Of those 400, many are being targeted by taggers.
“It looks filthy, it looks disgusting,” said Cynthia Repsher, who was walking on a downtown sidewalk. “It shows me that someone doesn’t have any regard for anyone else’s business.”
Downtown ambassadors from the Metropolitan Improvement District, who are funded by taxes on downtown business, are cleaning up the meters. The city’s Department of Transportation has solely been doing this job.
“Why not lend a helping hand, because we feel the city needs us just as much as we need them,” said Steven Walls of the Metropolitan Improvement District.
KIRO 7 spoke with Joseph Jacobs, who was removing graffiti from a pay station by painting over what couldn’t be lifted.
"I just think people are jerks for doing it,” Jacobs said.
A KIRO 7 photographer found two people, who claimed to be taggers but did not want to be identified, on Wednesday evening and they explained their actions.
“It’s fun, it’s invigorating,” said one of the taggers.
"I think that graffiti is empowering,” the other tagger said. “I think it’s a way of expressing an opinion."
The effort for the cleanup is expensive and time consuming. At least 200 hours of work and 200 cans of paint will be needed just to clean up the city's pay stations.