He has lung cancer. He has prostate cancer. He is 86 years old. He cannot physically attend city council meetings to make his case in person.
So Victor Fleming, disabled Air Force veteran, did the only thing left available to him. He spent $3,000 from his Social Security check on a billboard near Aurora Avenue in North Seattle.
It reads: “Would the last taxpayer to leave the Emerald City change the name to The Blue Tarp City of Thieves, Druggies, and Shooters?”
He put his name on it. He put his phone number on it.
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Fleming has lived near Aurora Avenue since 1955. He watched the neighborhood transform over seven decades from a place where you could leave your door open into a place where he has cameras everywhere and every person walking by with a backpack is a question mark. Half a dozen tents visible from his street. Drug activity. Crime. Prostitution.
He tried calling the mayor’s office. He tried the city council. He tried everyone.
He said he always gets some person or an AI that says we will call you back. But they never do. Particularly when they find out that what he wants to talk about is not pleasant for them.
So he bought a billboard.
He got approximately 150 calls after it went up. All but two were supportive. Some offered to help pay to keep it running. People recognized what he put into words that city officials have been carefully avoiding for years.
The city will tell you crime is down. And citywide numbers do show some improvement. Seattle hit a record 74 homicides in 2023 and numbers have been declining since. But the West Precinct saw violent crime jump 9% and robberies spike 28% in the first half of 2026. In Wallingford a wine bar was burglarized seven times since it opened in January 2025. Near Alki Beach the Fourth of July brought fireworks thrown at cars and homes by a crowd that included a 16-year-old who was arrested.
The citywide statistics and the lived experience of people on Aurora Avenue are two completely different realities. Officials point to the big number. Victor Fleming lives in the specific number.
He is not asking for utopia. He is asking for a city that returns his calls.
Seattle’s city government spent years embracing policies that its own supporters now quietly admit enabled the behavior that drove taxpayers and businesses out of neighborhoods like the one Fleming has lived in since 1955. They called anyone who complained about it a bad person. They called the problems systemic. They called for more money, more programs, more government.
Victor Fleming called his Social Security check and bought a billboard.
He is the last taxpayer warning the city that more are on their way out behind him.
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