Yeah, that's right, kick us when we're down:
Jeffersonville City Councilman Mike Smith is hoping to reduce the number of newspaper and advertisement boxes lining downtown sidewalks.
The boxes — which belong to The Evening News, the Courier-Journal and a host of other publications advertising homes, cars and apartments — can be found on numerous street corners. The city already has an ordinance that regulates the racks. However, Smith believes it needs more enforcement.
Actually, it's worse than that. A woman named Peggy Duffy, who heads something called City Pride, says having a "uniform look" is an important goal. "Obsessive signage is not conducive to an aesthetically pleasing atmosphere," she said. (Yes, she really, really did.) Councilman Smith has approached City Pride with a nifty idea, to enclose the boxes inside of decorative, green wrought iron fences that would match downtown benches and garbage cans.
The fences would wrap around the back of the boxes, hiding them from traffic, but keeping them visible to passersby on the sidewalk. Smith believes the fences would not only clean up the look of the street corners, but also help limit the number of boxes.
It never occurred to me how conducive to an aesthetically unpleasing atmosphere it was for Fort Wayne to be so unconcerned about matching its garbage cans with wrought iron fences. But I'll bet there's somebody in a planning office somewhere working on that right now. Grab those newspaper single copies while you can!
