They're ba-a-a-a-ck! The return of the messy and dirty flyers posted on the telephone poles in your neighborhood, if the voters sign and pass this initiative in the fall. Remember what telephone poles looked like before the City Council, along with City Light decided to do something to clean them up. It will be coming back if this Initiative No. 48 gets on the ballot. The organizers call it "Free Speech Seattle". It is a concentrated effort by a few music promoters to use the telephone poles for "benefit concerts," and "voter's registration." The Seattle Weekly said they were only 19,000 signatures from putting this issue on the ballot.
Do you also remember how the City Light linemen complained bitterly of the many injuries they suffered while working on these poles with all the material posted on them? The many merchants and neighborhood residents who objected to this form of telephone pole "trashing" made a solid case before the City Council to ban this neighborhood blight. For these slick promoters it is the cheapest form of advertising without any responsibility. They pay nothing for the use of telephone/light poles and in past years did nothing to clean up their messes. The City spent a lot of bucks to clean off the poles, and as this writer remembers it took six months to do the job. Will the people be folled again? Only time will tell.
Former City Councilman George Benson fought the long battle to remove this unsightly form of cheap advertising. Will we have to draft George to come back one more time to figth this battle again? Stand by, George. We may need you!