Council keeps ban on utility pole flyers

Chapel Hill Herald
Friday November 15, 2002
BY RAY GRONBERG
Page 1

CHAPEL HILL - Despite the pleas of a Rosemary Street record store owner, the Town Council has decided to retain Chapel Hill's longtime ban on posting advertising flyers on utility poles.

A divided council voted 6-3 earlier this week to retain the ban. Members who favored retaining the ban said it's consistent with the town's desire to maintain a clean downtown.

"I'm looking for consistency," said Councilwoman Flicka Bateman, who noted that the next edition of Chapel Hill's land-use law might limit Duke Power's ability to install overhead utility wires.

Concern about aesthetics is driving that decision, so it makes no sense to "allow the cluttering of utility poles at eye level" at the same time, she said.

The three dissenters - Councilmen Ed Harrison, Mark Kleinschmidt and Bill Strom - wanted to repeal or significantly modify the ordinance.

Kleinschmidt and Strom argued that the presence of flyers on utility poles is a common feature of life in a college town.

"It boils down to a subjective aesthetic," Strom said. "A creosote-coated, pressure-treated piece of lumber with 9 million staples in it is aesthetically unappealing [too]."

The council opened debate on the flyer ban this spring, at the request of Erik Ose, the owner of Lost City Music & Video on West Rosemary Street.

Ose asked the council to consider repealing the ban after he received a ticket for attaching a flyer advertising a "banquet for global peace and justice" to a pole.

A police officer who saw Ose put up the flyer issued the ticket after the record store owner refused an order to take it down. The ticket eventually cost Ose $115.

Ose criticized the council's decision to retain the ban on flyers.

"Most people are flabbergasted to learn that this law exists to begin with," he said. "All we're asking is that they let people's posters stay up for a week at a time, which would save the town money, encourage low-cost marketing by locally owned businesses and grass-roots political expression, and preserve the sense of community that flyers and posters give our town. Would that be so terrible?"

Roughly 1,200 people signed a petition organized by Ose that favored repeal. But a key player - Duke Power - weighed in strongly against the proposal.

Duke officials argued that the heavy staples used to attach flyers cause wood to erode over time, and create safety hazards for workers who have to climb poles to maintain utility lines.

Duke, BellSouth and Time Warner Cable own most of the poles in town. The poles are private property, and some critics of the repeal proposal argued that it amounted to the legalization of trespassing.

Ose saw it differently. "I'd like to think that the voices and wishes of the community speak louder than a big corporation when it comes to deciding town issues," he said.

Meanwhile, Mayor Kevin Foy noted that the town is in the process of rendering the debate moot. It's already asked Duke to replace the wooden poles now in place along North Columbia Street and the 100 block of East Franklin Street with metal fixtures that jibe with the requirements of Chapel Hill's Streetscape program.

Monday's vote also ordered Town Manager Cal Horton and his staff to look for additional places to install the four-sided flier kiosks that are part of the Streetscape program.

Posts on poles may be allowed

The Chapel Hill News
June 26, 2002
News in Review
Page A2

By the end of the year, utility poles around Chapel Hill may be sporting legal flyers and posters.

On Monday, the Chapel Hill Town Council backed a request by Erik Ose, a local activist and businessman, to allow signs on utility poles, a practice that is now banned.

Duke Power opposed the change in policy, citing nails and staples for causing "a degradation of the integrity of the wood" and making it less safe for crews to climb the poles and repair lines.

Council member Pat Evans opposed the signs for safety reasons, as well as aesthetics.

"There will be signs that spring up addressing every major issue and commercial venture," Evans said. "Allowing all kinds of signs to be posted in all corners of the community is the wrong direction to take."

But the majority of the council disagreed.

"I don't think there is going to be a crisis of posting around town," council member Mark Kleinschmidt responded.

The council voted 6-3, with Evans, Jim Ward and Flicka Bateman dissenting, to ask the town attorney to bring back ideas on how to change the ordinance in the fall.

If the ordinance changes, Public Works staff members would take the signs down at regular intervals in much the way they clean up the town-owned kiosks.

PRESERVING COLLEGE TOWN FLAVOR: Handbills don't do anyone harm

Chapel Hill Herald
Saturday June 22, 2002
EDITORIAL
Page 4

"I heartily accept the motto, 'That government is best which governs least'; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically."

So wrote Henry David Thoreau in his essay "Civil Disobedience," a manifesto exemplified by Chapel Hill music store owner Erik Ose.

Ose's act of defiance of a town ordinance, tacking up a handbill on a utility pole on Franklin Street, cost him a $115 fine, but it bought him a hearing:

The Chapel Hill Town Council is scheduled to revisit its prohibition of fliers on utility poles Monday.

In April, Ose posted a flier in front of his business, Lost City Music & Video on West Rosemary Street, advertising a "banquet for global peace and justice."

Perhaps because of Ose's willingness to bear the brunt of fiat upon his pocketbook rather than carp from the sidelines, Councilman Bill Strom put Ose's request to repeal the relevant section of the Town Code on the meeting agenda.

"I thought [Ose] made a good point," Strom said. "There are some unspoken things that make for community character."

Exactly.

Also, the good council members should consider how their longstanding neglect of enforcing the ordinance only underscores how superfluous it is to that character.

Much of what passes for community-building these days seems aimed at recovering what communities have in their folly done their best to obliterate, in this case, the sans souci charm of a college village.

One needs only visit The Streets at Southpoint mall in Durham to see how its designers have tried to reclaim the town's formerly similar ambience - with its faux streetscapes - that the last generation of city planners discarded.

To which the Chapel Hill Town Council can take the reasonable step of preserving the authentic item.

Handbills are simple and practical communication that harm no one and help cement the social contract.

To paraphrase a neo-Waldenite, Joni Mitchell, Chapel Hill should recognize what it's got before it's gone.

Local Business Petitions for Revamped Flyer Policy

The Daily Tar Heel
April 15, 2002
By Jenny Huang

A local business owner has petitioned the Chapel Hill Town Council to change an ordinance that prohibits signs from being fastened to utility poles, claiming the regulation has direct implications for free speech.
Erik Ose, who owns Lost City Music and Video, located on 402 Rosemary St., says small business owners and community organizations should be allowed to post flyers on telephone poles for grass-roots advertising purposes.

But according to section 16-3 of the town code, "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."

Last week Ose petitioned the Town Council to revise or repeal the ordinance so signs can be posted on poles.

During the meeting, Ose told the council that two Chapel Hill police officers issued him a citation for stapling a poster on a pole in front of the Franklin Street post office and refusing to tear the poster down.

Ose said that although the police officers were courteous, he was disturbed when the officers said they were surprised that Ose would bother being cited and having to go to court when he could have taken the posters down, apologized and put up more posters on the next corner.

"But you know, who's fooling who here?" Ose said Monday night. "Why should a citizen have to play cat-and-mouse games with the police when they're simply trying to publicize a worthy cause or advertise their business or speak out about an issue they care about?"

Chapel Hill Planning Director Roger Waldon said he was surprised to hear Ose's comments on Monday night because he usually hears complaints about people posting signs on poles.

"Usually, the comments we get are the opposite," Waldon said. "The main way in which this issue has come before is periodically there is concern about the appearance of downtown (Chapel Hill)."

Waldon said local merchants have always been concerned that scraps of flyers on telephone poles would degrade the appearance of the downtown area.

But Ose said he thinks aesthetic issues should not be sacrificed for the freedom of expression in the community.

"To me, a pole (with flyers) represents what this town is all about," he said during an interview Tuesday night. "What is more aesthetically appealing -- a picture of a pole with (flyers of) diverse ideas on it or no flyers at all?"

But Curtis Brooks, public works landscape architect, said downtown kiosks were established to create space for businesses and community organizations to advertise.

"The reason we like kiosks instead of poles is because it centralizes notices, so when we do our weekly clean up, it centralizes things," he said.

Brooks said employees of the public works landscape division clean up downtown litter -- including flyers on telephone poles -- on a daily basis and clear off kiosks on a weekly basis.

"Our concerns are just practical," Brooks said. "We prefer the posting of bills in centralized locations."

But Ose said the freedom of speech is restricted with the kiosks, especially since the number of available kiosks has decreased from five to two because of downtown construction.

"If you're restricting free speech to only two areas in town -- is that really free speech?" he said.

Darren Hunicutt, co-coordinator of Internationalist Books on 405 W. Franklin St., said grass-roots advertising is an important medium because small business owners and local community organizations don't have large advertising budgets.

"For small business owners and non-profit organizations, I think (grass-roots advertising) is an exceptional resource," Hunicutt said. "With the amount of foot traffic that goes around, I really think it's effective."

Ose said he has accumulated about 300 signatures on several petitions and plans to present the signatures to the Town Council during its regular business meeting tonight.

But Brooks warns that it is not up to the residents or town staff to make the final decision.

"It's not up to us to value or pass judgment on a policy," Brooks said.

"(Whether or not we can post flyers on poles) is ultimately a policy decision decided by the council."

The City Editor can be reached at citydesk@unc.edu.

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."