SPOKANE, Wash. — The city is on a mission to make Spokane’s streets cleaner.
Mayor Lisa Brown recently proposed a new ordinance that would crack down on illegal dumping in Spokane.
The ordinance would be in line with Washington state law, which classifies illegal dumping as a misdemeanor that could result in fines.
The city said vacant lots, alleyways and street corners are often the sites of illegal dumping across Spokane.
“We really rely on people to call 311 and report illegal dump sites and help us respond and inform us on how we should allocate our resources,” said Erin Hut, Director of Communications for the City of Spokane.
Hut said the city has two code enforcement teams that respond to illegal dumping reports.
One team responds to different neighborhoods across Spokane, while the other acts as a homeless outreach team and works with SPD to respond to garbage that comes from illegal camping.
“Our code enforcement team does a really good job of working with those homeowners or neighbors to first inform people what’s really going on, what the solution is, what the penalties could be and working with them to try to come to a resolution, and then, if it continues, there is an opportunity to fine those people,” said Hut.
The city has also launched a Code Enforcement Dashboard to track how much garbage is being collected and from where.
“This is an opportunity for us to show we are responding to this many sites, this many are in progress, we are responding to your reports and here is the outcome of total pounds of garbage picked up,” said Hut.
The dashboard shows that in 2023, 1.6 million pounds of garbage was picked up. So far, in 2024, 1.2 has been collected, but the city said it expects the final number to surpass the number from 2023.
“This is an inflection point for us to tell the community that we are taking this issue seriously. We know that when we have a clean and safe downtown and cleaner and safer neighborhoods, people just feel safer overall,” said Hut.
To see the city’s Code Enforcement Dashboard, visit my.spokanecity.org.
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