During Monday’s weekly City Council briefing meeting, Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda – the West Seattleite who holds citywide Position 8 – told her colleagues that the Department of Finance and Administrative Services was dealing with a high number of claims filed by pothole victims. We followed up with FAS to see just how high the stack was getting. Spokesperson Melissa Mixon looked into it and started her reply with one jaw-dropping, axle-busting stat: “The number of pothole claims for 2021 was 210 and the current count for 2022 is 300-plus.” She adds, “It is noteworthy though that pothole claims from the recent snowstorm already constitute approximately half of all our open claims.” The Risk Management division doesn’t have a geographic breakout, so we don’t know how many of those potholes are in West Seattle. SDOT does have a map showing fixed and reported potholes – here’s a screengrab:
Circles represent recently filled potholes; diamonds represent ones that are “pending.” You can report a pothole here. If you’ve sustained damage from one on a city road, here’s how to file a claim. We asked Mixon how that process works: Your claim is assigned to an adjuster. They reach out to the relevant city department (SDOT) in this case for a formal response. Then they can either close the claim for lack of contact or information, tender it (when another entity is responsible), deny it (if the city isn’t found negligent, or settle it.
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