February 1, 2007
Honorable Marysville City Council
1049 State Avenue
Marysville, WA 98270
RE: Proposed Amendments to Graffiti Ordinance
Dear Council Members,
One behalf of the members of The Greater Marysville Tulalip Chamber of Commerce, I want to thank you for asking us to sit on the City’s Graffiti Taskforce. Our involvement has been clear from the beginning – to represent the business community, especially small businesses, to insure our city has the highest quality of life while minimizing the impacts new requirements may have on business. In that regard, our Chamber mass mailed information on this ordinance to both its membership and the remaining licensed business community as well as concurrently conducted a survey to analyze our members’ support, as well as their concerns, towards each element of the proposed amendments. Attached is a copy of the results of our survey, as well as a summary of many of the comments we received.
Our Chamber Government Affairs Committee and Board of Directors have reviewed the results of our survey along with the comments from our members and have developed recommendations that we believe strongly must be considered in approving a final version of ordinance.
Our Chamber supports a new graffiti ordinance that incorporates the following:
- Removal of graffiti by the business or individual within 48 hours.
- A provision that clarifies the definition of “responsible party” in MMC CH. 6.25.040 and clarifies how the city will attempt to contact property owners/landlords in the case where the premises are occupied by tenant businesses that may or may not have the authority within their leases to perform the required abatement. Further, given that MMC Ch. 6.25.070 allows the city to abate the graffiti and recover the cost through a lien, the Chamber is concerned with insuring that a tenant’s lack of responsibility in notifying their landlord of a nuisance notice will not have the potential to negatively impact the business affairs of the property owner/landlord.
- The Chamber believes strongly that the City should evaluate and consider a mechanism, such as a check-off at the time of the issuance of a business license, that will allow the City, should it have an abatement program in place (e.g. the abatement being provided by the Marysville Seniors Against Crime), to access that private property for the purposes of abatement. We recognize that this issue must also be coordinated in a manner that recognizes, as discussed above, that business are sometimes only tenants of property and not the owners that can legally give the permission required by the City in order to allow for abatement.
- In regards to the proposed new section, MMC Ch. 6.25.075, the Chamber strongly supports a voluntary program at this time that encourages local business to refrain from selling graffiti related products to minors less than 18 year of age, restricting the access to such products and/or placing such products in areas where they are more easily monitored. The Chamber believes that mandating these restrictions at this time will be burdensome and costly and that further consideration should be given to their effectiveness, especially if similar restrictions are not adopted in neighboring communities. Further, the Chamber supports review of these restrictions, as well as the effectiveness of the other amendments within this revised code, within one year of the ordinance’s effectiveness. And, the Chamber strongly encourages the City to work with the Chamber prior to the initiation of this review to get notice to those businesses selling the products in question so that they can participate in any discussions regarding mandatory restrictions.
- The Chamber encourages the City, and offers its support, to work with neighboring jurisdictions to facilitate their consideration and adoption of similar codes to maximize the effectiveness of discouraging graffiti within our city and the communities that surround us.
Once again, we would like to thank you for your invitation to participate in this process. Should you have any questions or wish to further discuss the Chamber’s positions, please do not hesitate to contact us at any time.
Sincerely,
Marilyn Sheldon Caldie Rogers
Chairman of the Board President/CEO
Cc: Honorable Mayor Dennis Kendall
Chamber Board of Directors
