Kudos to Bill Martinson, Mayor Taylor and Keep Tulsa Beautiful! Tulsa's sign blight has gone on long enough.
I hope the sign makers and the businesses that think placing a sign on a street corner is effective marketing take heed. Their days of trashing Tulsa are coming to a close.
And let me clarify something -- this is NOT about political signs. As long as there is an upcoming election, people should expect to see signs for candidates. However, after an election is over, they are fair game. They have 10 days to remove them I believe. (Are you reading this Pete Regan? Sorry you lost but your signs are trashing Tulsa.)
I have been quoted a few times on this story by the media so I felt I should chime in.
Signs in the right-of-way really bother me. They look terrible and cause me to never support that candidate or business.
The worst violator in my part of town is Jessie Guardiola who is running for state rep. He is a policemen, yet every intersection and on/off ramp has his illegal signs on them. I know it is difficult to control your volunteers, but I would think a policemen would do a better job following the law.
RM-
Nice sound bite on KRMG yesterday. Thanks for taking the initiative.
Also, kudos to NellieBly for the nice pun in the thread's title.
quote:
Originally posted by recyclemichael
The worst violator in my part of town is Jessie Guardiola who is running for state rep. He is a policemen, yet every intersection and on/off ramp has his illegal signs on them. I know it is difficult to control your volunteers, but I would think a policemen would do a better job following the law.
I now have another violator that bothers me as much. The "No River Tax" signs are all over my part of town. Every one is illegal. If someone knows this guy, tell him to stop.
I agree with you RecycleMichael.
I also wonder this:
Why even have political signs? Do you vote for the candidate with the prettiest sign? Or even the biggest sign, or the most signs in a small space?
Do we want to promote 'voting' for a person because of a sign? Shouldn't they know something about the person that has his name on the sign?
So let's eliminate all signs along the streets, including political signs because they don't tell us anything about the candidate. We need the candidate on the street, to tell us what he is going to do to improve the position he/she is running for. A sign can't tell you that.
(http://www.fotothing.com/photos/8c7/8c719b723b9563bacefdd6fceb8dc821.jpg?ts=1160580440)ugly people can hide behind ugly signs
That's a nice sentiment, alanoftulsa, but we'll be seeing political signs well into the future.
Involved in the consideration of banning them are free speech issues and that's enough to scare off most who would want to place strong restrictions on these signs. Also, since it's politicians themselves who decide on such ordinances, and since they know that signs are a proven tool for name recognition, well, you do the math.
I can put up with their time-limited visual pollution, but I think their campaign chiefs should be required to sign off on knowledge of the ordinances regarding the posting of political signs. They also should agree to have all improperly posted ones removed by authorized officers and volunteers. (You don't want unauthorized folks removing them or you'll have big problems!)
Sadly, one dirty little secret of politics is that, more often than not, people win elections based upon name recognition, especially in less popular races. People go in to vote for governor, president, etc...., and see there's also a race for council or state house. Not knowing anything about any candidates, they are likely to vote either party lines or whichever name looks familiar. Also, the number of people who go to vote who have a difficult time remembering their own names is frightening--the only way to ensure their vote is to have your name plastered everywhere. Politicians know this, and aren't about to stop putting signs up.
Yeah, they have to try to remember the name assigned to them by the Republican or Democratic party just before boarding the bus for the polls. [;)]
Thanks for the kudos rwarn, I can't take credit for that. Another city uses it to describe their volunteer sign removers. I think it's clever. I was trying to come up with something along the lines of "islamosign fascist" or something but signdinistas says it all.