Thursday, May 26, 2011

Tears in my eyes as municipality finally catches up to blog on street spam and illegal signage.

For the past few years, I quit writing about street spam and ugly, annoying, illegal signage.

But I never ceased the rewarding hobby of street spam sign sharking. I’ve pulled down hundreds of these eyesores since 2006. It once crossed my mind to keep the haul, and to photograph it. Sad to say, the resource-wasting placards ended up in the landfill, and I feel bad about that part of it. Can they be recycled?

Today comes overdue vindication: Five or so years after I lobbied the Garner administration to do something about street spam (there was the predictable talk, accompanied by no walk whatsoever), the headline appears at OSIN:

Get rid of the junk: New Albany may call on residents to help remove signs

Before the text, which includes the usual irrelevant Coffeyite grandstanding about yard sale signs, consider these past links from NA Confidential:

One excellent morning's "street spam" sign sharkin'.

One fine Sunday spent "street spam" sharkin'.

Netpointe's street spam: We do not like it here or there ... we do not like it anywhere.

Street spam, sign sharks and the sheer joy of litter removal.

The mobile sign shark kicks off the 2006 anti-street spam beautification campaign.

Here's the rest of the story from OSIN’s Daniel Suddeath.


New Albany residents could soon be appointed to clear the city’s right-of-ways of illegal signage.

The New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety approved an amendment this week to the city’s ordinance governing signs on public property such as utility poles.

The proposal will now move to the New Albany City Council for consideration. If passed, the New Albany Board of Public Works and Safety would have the ability to appoint members of the community to take down signs placed in the city’s right-of-ways.

Such signs could include yard sale notices, commercial advertisements or political signs.

2 comments:

bayernfan said...

While doing the walkability study last Saturday, I noticed Jack Messer stopping to take down a sign tacked up on a utility pole. Was glad to see that.

Jeff Gillenwater said...

Dang. My three year timeline was off.