A "Free Speech" ballot initiative that is plugging hundreds of young Seattleites into local politics has won the backing of the American Civil Liberties Union.
But the ballot measure, which would end the city's 5-year-old ban on attaching posters to power poles, is drawing equally hot opposition from electrical workers and some civic leaders.
Initiative 46 could qualify for the Nov. 2 city ballot if Free Speech Seattle gathers 18,830 valid signatures by late August.
Free Speech Seattle says the poster ban has muffled the area's grass-roots music and political scenes, which depend on handbills to spread news, and dampens free expression.
The signature campaign to overturn the ban has galvanized many young people, said initiative author Tim Crowley, a music Web site operator. He said about 3,000 petition forms are being passed around clubs, coffeehouses and street fairs.
Bands such as The Catheters and Burning Airlines have planned benefits.
The measure would keep the ban on posters on traffic signs, but would allow notices back on the city's 250,000 utility poles and light posts.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington endorses the measure as a matter of freedom of expression even if posters might also create visual clutter, said Julya Hampton, legal program director.
"The aesthetic price that one pays for a having a forum to put messages," Hampton said, "is not that big a price to pay."
But Hampton said safety also must be taken into account, an issue that has prompted fervent opposition to Initiative 46 from the union representing Seattle's 600 City Light lineworkers.
David Timothy, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 77, said thick layers of papers and staples pose a safety hazard to pole climbers.
"When you have two or three inches of posters and nails and staples," Timothy said, "it's impossible to climb that pole."
A power pole is a lineworker's "sidewalk," Timothy added, and the worker has a right to use it without unnecessary obstacles.
City Attorney Mark Sidran, who also favors the ban, said a plethora of posters also can distract motorists from seeing traffic signs even if the signs themselves aren't covered.
And he said rain-soaked posters tend to rot telephone poles "like wrapping a wet blanket around them." Moreover, he said there's no way the city can legally allow notices for lost pets or fledgling rock bands without also opening the floodgates to endless commercial clutter.
"In terms of the First Amendment," Sidran said, "if you allow anything, you pretty much have to allow 'Lose Weight in 30 Days.'"
No organized opposition campaign to I-46 has yet surfaced, according to the city elections office. Proponents have raised nearly $4,000.
Free Speech Seattle has scheduled music-filled public rallies for May 22 at Steinbrueck Park near the Pike Place Market, and June 12 at Westlake Park.
The group can be reached on the Internet at www.freespeechseattle.org.