1200 signatures total from residents of Chapel Hill on petition to repeal poster ban

Statement to Chapel Hill Town Council, 10/16/02

Good evening, Mayor Foy and members of the Council.

My name is Erik Ose, and I first came before you a last spring with a petition to allow the posting of notices on utility poles in Chapel Hill.

I see this issue is one of the items before the Council at tonight's public hearing, so I wanted to come back before you and present another 200 signatures on this petition. This makes a total of 1,200 Chapel Hill residents who have signed, which hopefully demonstrates that however minor this issue might seem in the global scheme of things, it's still a local issue that a great number of town citizens care deeply about. It speaks directly to what kind of town we all want Chapel Hill to be.

The ordinance that first prohibited signs or notices for advertising purposes from being placed on utility poles dates from April 7, 1925.

Maybe this ordinance made sense for Chapel Hill when it was still a small village back in 1925. It probably seemed like a progressive law, a way to keep local businesses from littering the town’s landscape with excessive commercial appeals. But there are important differences between the Chapel Hill of 1925 and today. In 2002, if you’re putting a flyer up on a telephone pole, more than likely, it’s advertising a concert, or it’s about a political issue, or you’re a small business, a locally owned business without a huge advertising budget. Local businesses like C.O. Copies, Back Door CD’s, Carolina Car Wash, Internationalist Books, and the Burrito Bunker use flyers all the time to attract customers.

These stores are trying every day to compete with faceless chain stores in our town owned by national corporations, the kind of economic competition that didn’t exist in Chapel Hill 77 years ago. I think the town needs to do all it can to encourage, not discourage locally owned businesses to stay open in Chapel Hill.

Obviously, even more disturbing is that you're subject to arrest if a police officer catches you in the act of posting a flyer. I don't think our town should be spending its limited resources criminalizing the simple act of its residents putting posters on telephone poles.

I know Duke Power would like to keep this ordinance as its now written, because the town is spending our tax dollars to keep their poles clean. I would think a utility like Duke Power would want to give something back to the community in which they operate by letting the citizens of Chapel Hill use the utility poles to post notices. They say the poles don't last as long if people put posters on them. What, are they going to fall over once they accumulate a critical mass of staples?

And the argument about how staples jeopardize the safety of linemen seems to be a red herring, because most linemen these days don't climb poles, they go up in cherrypickers, and if Duke Power is truly concerned about their workers' safety, they should be willing to spend the extra money to let them go up in cherrypickers if there's a problem with the poles.

I’d also briefly like to address the aesthetic argument against posters. If this ordinance is designed to improve the town’s appearance by keeping utility poles bare, then it’s accomplishing exactly the opposite of what it was intended to do.

Take a look at any one of the utility poles downtown located at major intersections. What looks better, a cold, barren pole littered with jagged, torn scraps of paper, or one covered with colorful, exciting posters representing the free exchange of ideas that’s so central to the very idea of what Chapel Hill is about? That’s obviously an aesthetic judgement call. But the reality is that when the town spends taxpayer money to tear down people’s posters every single day, the posters are going to look like eyesores. Look at the poles. They’re covered with staples and remnants of posters. Citizens put posters up on utility poles every day, and they’re going to keep doing it, unless there’s a cop on every corner ready to arrest them. So the poles are going to look like eyesores unless the Council revises this ordinance.

Right now the public works department spends taxpayer dollars to tear peoples’ posters down daily. Wouldn’t it make more sense and save some money by having them do it just a little less often, maybe once a week, like they clear the town-owned kiosks on Sunday mornings. That way, people’s posters would have a chance to be seen without being immediately torn down, and the poles would look more aesthetically pleasing all week long. But again, that’s just my aesthetic judgement call. The most important thing is for the town to start placing value on its citizens being able to freely express ourselves.

Some people might say that by virtue of the town maintaining several kiosks in the downtown area where flyers can legally be posted, the town has every right to declare utility poles off limits to public posting. Over the summer, more kiosks have been constructed as part of the town's Streetscepe improvement program. That’s great, more kiosks are certainly welcome. But the utility poles exist, they’re not being used for anything else, they’re a natural venue for free speech. More kiosks cost more money, but it would actually cost the town less money to clear the utility poles weekly instead of daily if this ordinance is revised.

Besides, I think the Council needs to take a hard look at whether speech in town is truly free if it’s restricted to only certain little areas. On any given day in Chapel Hill, people are on the move, going about their daily lives, and not necessarily stopping by the town-owned poster kiosks for their daily appointment with free speech. Bottom line, that’s why people put flyers on utility poles, because it’s where their messages have a realistic chance of being seen and heard.

I know this Council has the town's best interests at heart, and when deciding this issue, I know the Council will consider what is the right thing to do, the progressive thing to do, the Chapel Hill thing to do. Thank you.

1000 signatures from residents of Chapel Hill on petition to repeal poster ban

Statement to Chapel Hill Town Council, 6/24/02

Good evening, Mayor Foy and members of the Council.

My name is Erik Ose, and I first came before you a couple of months ago with a petition to allow the posting of notices on utility poles in Chapel Hill.

I see the Council is scheduled to discuss this issue tonight, so I wanted to come back before you and present another 100 signatures on this petition, in addition to the 900 I delivered to you last month. This makes a total of 1,000 Chapel Hill residents who have signed this petition, which hopefully demonstrates that however minor this issue might seem in the global scheme of things, it's still a local issue that a great number of town citizens care deeply about. It speaks directly to what kind of town we all want Chapel Hill to be.

In the couple of months since you first received this petition, the town has constructed three new kiosks on Franklin Street where postings are allowed. Numerous people have commented to me that they guess the construction of these kiosks represents the town's response to our petition. I've responded that I'm sure the kiosks were already scheduled to be built as part of the town's Streetscape improvements, and are unrelated to the timing of this petition. I certainly hope that the Council will not turn to these new kiosks as the only solution.

More kiosks are welcome, but they cost money that the town can ill afford at a time of widespread budget cuts. In contrast, telephone poles already exist, they're all over town, not just in the downtown area, and it would actually cost the town less instead of more to allow citizens to post notices on them, because now the Public Works Department spends tax dollars clearing the poles more often than they clear the kiosks. Clearing the poles once a week makes much more sense, would cost the town less, and give people's messages a chance to be seen and heard.

Bottom line, the town shouldn't be spending its limited resources criminalizing the simple act of its residents putting posters on telephone poles. Thank you.

Petitioners want to post messages on town's telephone poles

The Chapel Hill News
May 8, 2002
Page A1
By Virginia Knapp

CHAPEL HILL -- It's a message some folks want plastered all over town: Let us stick flyers on telephone poles.

More than 800 people have signed a petition asking the Town Council to repeal an ordinance banning posters on utility poles. They say that the problem is that there aren't nearly enough spaces where bands, small businesses and anyone willing to spend a few cents at Kinko's can exercise their freedom of speech.

"The free speech issue is the most important thing here," said Erik Ose, the Lost City music store owner who is leading the petition drive. "We want to show council that a lot of people care about this issue and that this is an ordinance that serves no useful purpose."

It took a ticket for Ose to start the petition drive.

In April, Ose was hanging flyers on utility poles along Franklin Street for the Banquet for Global Peace and Justice, a dinner sponsored by Internationalist Books, the Triangle Free Press and the UNC Campaign to End the Cycle of Violence.

In front of the Franklin Street post office, Ose was stopped by Chapel Hill Police officers, who asked him to tear down the flyers he had just tacked up. When he refused, Ose was cited for violating section 16.3 of the town ordinances.

"Both officers said they were surprised by my willingness to waste my time and money by being written up and having to go to court over this issue, when I could have done what everyone else they've ever caught in the act of postering on telephone poles does," Ose said. "Namely, torn my own posters down, apologize and go on to the next corner to put up more posters once the officers' backs were turned.

"But why should a citizen have to play cat and mouse with the police?"

The ordinance banning signs on utility poles is a long-standing one. Ose found the regulation in codes dating back to 1925.

"It was probably passed to prohibit excessive commercial appeals by businesses," Ose said. "But there's an important difference between the Chapel Hill of 1925 and today. Today you're more than likely to be advertising a concert or a social issue or you're advertising a small local business without a huge advertising budget."

One argument that the pole-poster advocates use is that the fliers help nonprofits and small businesses spread their messages.

"No nonprofits I know of have an ad budget the size of Wal-Mart's," said Andrew Pearson, a UNC student who was helping Ose post flyers for the peace banquet. "It's a shame they can't put up a flyer on a utility pole to advertise."

Another argument is that the town has taken down all but two of the five kiosks on Franklin Street where it was legal to post flyers.

"It's a problem of the town's own making because people don't have enough places to post," said Matt Barrett, co-owner of the Poster Guys, a business that posts flyers for everything from university functions to church services. "I don't think a telephone pole is a thing of beauty, anyway, so anything that can make it more useful is good."

Curtis Brooks, the town's landscape architect, says the old kiosks were in poor repair and needed to be taken down as part of Streetscape improvements downtown.

A new kiosk went up recently in front of the town-owned parking lot at the corner of Rosemary and Columbia streets. Unlike the old wooden pole and shingle kiosks, the new one is made of fabricated metal and plywood for the posting boards.

"This is new design, so we decided to install one as a prototype," Brooks said, adding that he hopes the others will be installed by the end of the year. "I'm very pleased with it."

The kiosks are cleared of posters weekly by the Public Works Department, and Ose suggests that the poles could be cleared with the same regularity. Public Works employees clear the utility poles of illegal posters every other day or so now.

"Revising and repealing the ordinance would provide a cost-effective way to make sure people's messages are being heard," Ose said, comparing the easy availability of poles to the cost of installing more kiosks. "It also would save the town money by not having Public Works go out to tear down the posters."

But some folks like having the posters torn down. People who support the ordinance say the flyers, torn scraps of paper and staples hurt the town's appearance.

"I think it looks pretty trashy if you have people sticking posters up all over town," said Mickey Ewell, owner of Spanky's and 411 West restaurants on Franklin Street.

However, Barrett defended the posters as an enhancement.

"People who run the town are very hung up on appearances. They want it to look like a mall," Barrett said. "I'm all for posting on telephone poles. It makes it look like the town has something going on."

Ose agreed.

"What looks better: A pole covered with staples and torn, jagged scraps of paper or a pole that is covered with brightly colored posters?"

The council will take up the petition again in June, but Ose will present additional petition signatures at the council's next business meeting on Monday.

That's a week before Ose's May 20 court date to fight his citation for postering.

Store owner challenges ban on flyers: Utility pole law impedes free speech rights, he says

Chapel Hill Herald
Saturday April 13, 2002
Page 1
By RAY GRONBERG

CHAPEL HILL - A West Rosemary Street record store owner wants the Town Council to repeal Chapel Hill's oft-ignored ban on posting flyers and signs on telephone poles.

Erik Ose says the 41-year-old law is an impediment to free speech that harms political groups and small businesses that can't afford newspaper and broadcast advertising.

Efforts to enforce the ban are a waste of money and undercut Chapel Hill's college-town image, he adds.

"It is a judgment call, but, personally, I feel a telephone pole covered with colorful, exciting, diverse posters looks better than cold, barren poles covered with staples and jagged pieces of paper," Ose said. "That's the kind of Chapel Hill I want to live in, not one where posters are treated like a scourge to be torn down and destroyed."

Ose appeared before the Town Council on Monday to ask members to consider a repeal measure and has since launched a petition drive to gather public support. He said more than 200 people have signed.

Council members relayed Ose's request to Town Manager Cal Horton, who will report back with research and advice later this spring.

Ose launched his repeal drive after a Chapel Hill police sergeant ticketed him on April 4 for attaching a flyer to a pole near the Franklin Street post office.

The flyer advertised a "banquet for global peace and justice" later that night in Carrboro that ended up raising $2,500 for a variety of social justice causes, said Ose, who runs Lost City Music & Video.

A police officer saw Ose stapling a flyer to the pole and asked him to take it down. Ose refused.

"I said I was sorry, I couldn't do that, because I didn't think it was a just ordinance," he recalled.

The officer summoned his sergeant, Anthony Brooks, who issued the ticket when Ose again refused to remove the flyer. The ticket charged him with placing a sign or notice on a utility pole in violation of a city ordinance.

It was referring to section 16-3 of the Town Code, which says "no signs or notices for advertising purposes shall be fastened or tacked to telephone, telegraph or electric light poles or trees on the streets or sidewalks."

Both officers were courteous, professional and surprised that someone was willing to spend time fighting the ordinance, said Ose, who added that he intends to contest the ticket in court on May 20.

The flyer ban is one of the most widely flouted ordinances in town, as a glance at any phone pole along Franklin and Rosemary streets would show. Ose is among the dozens of people who post announcements on them each day.

Many advertise political causes, but others promote businesses and concerts.

Town officials are just as energetic about removing them. The Public Works Department dispatches a landscaper each Sunday to strip flyers from phone poles and kiosks.

Postings in the kiosks are legal.

"We'd much rather that they be put there than stuck up on telephone poles or buildings," said Harv Howard, solid-waste services superintendent, who added that removal drives also precede major weekend events and festivals.

The town ordinarily maintains five kiosks, but it's been getting by with a couple less in recent years. Crews removed them during Streetscape sidewalk work.

Officials do intend to replace them - and the wooden kiosks that still remain elsewhere along Franklin Street - with steel-framed models designed to look better and stand up to vandals.

A public works crew will install the first steel kiosk next week on North Columbia Street, said Curtis Brooks, the town's urban forester.

The steel kiosks are being built by a Durham fabricator who charged the town $950 for the first one.

"If, as we anticipate, people feel it's an improvement over the older ones, we'll go ahead with the other five," Brooks said.

But while Ose said more kiosks are welcome, he still thinks the council should repeal the flier ban.

"The utility poles exist," he said. "What else are they really used for? They're a natural venue for free speech."

Ose's challenge to the flyer ban comes as officials are considering changes to another section of town law that also regulates signs.

The review - and a parallel enforcement suspension - began following September's "Woe to Our Enemies" flap involving East Franklin Street restaurant owner Scott Maitland and the town's Inspections Department.

Inspectors made Maitland take down a banner expressing his views on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

They said it was too large, but the order drew fierce protests because it came while three council members were in the process of complaining to Horton about the banner's message.

Officials subsequently agreed that parts of the sign law are vulnerable to challenge, and are in the process of scheduling a hearing to gather advice on how to change it.

The president of the American Civil Liberties Union's Chapel Hill-Carrboro chapter, Mark Dorosin, said the flyer ban might raise similar issues.

While court cases say local governments can impose reasonable "time, place and manner" restrictions on speech, they frown on any attempt to regulate content.

Since the flyer ban refers specifically to advertising, its wording could signal a content restriction, Dorosin said.

The code has one other potential problem, because it allows Horton to waive the posting ban for "temporary signs."

"What does that mean, and what is he basing that exercise of discretion on? If it's content based, it's constitutionally suspect," Dorosin said. "Anything that creates a content-based restriction, where the problem is the message rather than the form the message is being delivered in, I would say creates First Amendment problems at the least."

Stop and smell the posters

Ron Liberti, "Self-portrait"

The Chapel Hill News
May 12, 2000
By Marisa Brickman
Page B4

There's this poster hanging on kiosks and telephone poles that's been catching my eye for the past two weeks. Every time I pass the poster, I want to rip it down and take it home with me. The poster is tall and skinny, blue and white and has a really cute image of two little girls sharing a secret about a Three Stigmata show. Have you seen it?

Some people think posters are litter and others think they're art. I'm on the art tip. There is definitely a separation between an ugly advertisement and an aesthetically pleasing flyer.

I think we'd all agree that the mass-produced neon 8-by-10s posted anywhere and everywhere are eyesores. However, the screen-printed posters selectively placed in store windows and on the few remaining kiosks do nothing but beautify the city and make you do a double-take.

Screen-printing posters for rock shows has long been part of music scenes everywhere from San Francisco to Seattle to Chapel Hill. It makes sense because many accomplished musicians are also talented visual artists.

"Most of the people I know that screen-print have been in bands at some point; it tends to go hand in hand," said Casey Burns who has been screen-printing for the past nine years.

A lot of musicians screen-print their own posters. They understand their music and can most accurately represent their band's sound in a visual way.

Ron Liberti, who used to rate rock-show posters in a column for the 'zine Trash, has been screen-printing since 1988. He made them all when he played guitar with Pipe, and now he does all of the posters for his current band, Clok-Lok.

"The ones that people made with their own hands seem to lend more importance to the show and make it more of an occasion," he said. "Shows are important, and I try to put as much love and care into the posters as I do into the music."

One can only print so many posters, and the fancier they are, the more likely people will want them for their own. Just go visit the home of any local show-goer and you will most likely find at least one screen-printed show poster plastered on the wall and displayed as a piece of art.

Eric Cope, drummer for Three Stigmata and Hunter Gather, started screen-printing last summer, and his efforts have been nothing short of prolific.

"Screen-printed posters are better than photocopies because there's more love put into it. It's like a miniature painting - if someone sees it, they take it off a pole as a memento. Plus, it's a good way to remember a good show."

In order to promote a show, you almost need both. Photocopies aren't as pretty, but they help get the word out. And if everyone is taking the screen-prints home for souvenirs, double-teaming the promotion efforts have to help.

"The nicer looking ones get taken fast," said Burns. "It's a nice compliment, but you also want people to know about it, so I usually also make photocopies."

The areas where flyers may be placed have consistently dwindled over the past few years, leaving less and less space for legal flyering.

"In the seven years I've lived here, they put up kiosks as a solution to the problem of posters on telephone polls as sort of a compromise between rockers and city council," said Burns. "Since I've lived here I've seen a few of them disappear. There's only two or three now."

While most screen-printers seem to know the rules (no telephone poles or utility boxes), posters still appear almost any place they can be stapled. With the barrage of posters all concentrated in a few places, it drives the artist to seek out alternatives.

"I think your opportunities are limited only if you play by the rules. You shouldn't put them on anything alive, like trees, but if it's dead it's OK," said Liberti.

"People should be more original about where they put them," he added. "I once saw a flyer for a show in the beer cooler at Harris Teeter."

Other than the rules set out by the town of Chapel Hill, there seems to be a set of unwritten laws that respectable flyer posters abide by. When stapling up posters, it's important to check the date before you cover up someone else's hard work. And if you wallpaper kiosks with repetitive self-promoting propaganda, you'll do nothing but give yourself a bad reputation. That's not art, anyway.

Most people forget that art can be functional and aesthetically pleasing at the same time. If you haven't stopped to smell the posters, you should take the time to enjoy their visual pleasure before someone takes it home and puts it up in their kitchen.