Putting the media to the rack

Let's see -- the city is going to spend $1.2 million to police newspaper racks  downtown. We'll ignore the free speech issues, since there will undoubtedly be a lawsuit that will cost taxpayers another couple of million dollars to defend. So let's look at why else this is such a silly idea (and know that the Advocate has no racks affected by the ordinance, so my analysis is strictly whether it is good policy):

• Cleaning news rack clutter as a panacea. Ah yes, the problems downtown -- struggles to lure retail and residents, all those pot holes, crime -- will be solved by standardizing news racks. Of course they will. Her Mayorness, in one of her last official acts, said so: "It'll make downtown look a lot better. This is a great move."

• We really don't need that money for anything else, do we? Code enforcement, cops, library books? Sigh. I suppose I should just shut up and be grateful we're not giving the money to another developer.

• A patchwork remedy instead of a long-term solution, something our city government does a lot. This is the city plan to revitalize downtown. Compare it to the plan to revitalize New York City. The latter may have a bunch of stuff that sounds odd, but it's aggressive and forward thinking.

The rack ordinance is not about cleaning up downtown. It's about sticking it to the media. This is something politicians like to do, just to show they can do it. And especially if they can spend someone else's money.

Comments

[Farinata X]

I'm not so sure that it's "sticking it to the media" so much as it's the kind of shallow, cosmetic dipsy-doodle that city gopvernment loves to do. As you correctly point out, downtown has lots of issues that need to be addressed. This issue isn't one of them, but this is the kind of action that provides the appearance of action and lets its performers claim they did something.

[Rick Wamre]

Jeff is right - the Advocate doesn't have any racks downtown, primarily because of the cost of buying and maintaining a outside box and partly because we invest almost all of our distribution money hanging our magazine on the doorknobs of 80,000 target homes each month rather than just placing boxes all over and hoping people pick them up (shameless Advocate plug!). Just fyi, the cost of buying a standard free-distribution news box such as the ones you see the Observer use is $150-$250 each, and you can add another $50-$100 each for the coin-op mechanism used by the Morning News. And that doesn't include the regular maintenance of the coin-op, the regular collection of the coins, repairing the damage caused by vandals, replacing stolen racks, etc. So having said all of that about how expensive owning and managing a box downtown would be, I noticed in the story this morning that the city is going to charge $179 a year for the privilege of sharing the group boxes the city is going to buy; in my opinion, that is a much better economic deal than buying and maintaining a box yourself. True, you're grouped together instead of being by yourself (which is better for visibility), but now that the city is, in effect, subsidizing the cost of the boxes, it's affordable for us to apply to get in the lottery. I doubt that their intention was to level the playing field, but that's the way it looks to me.

[Jeff Siegel]

Let's get a box downtown. Then we can be sure The Construction Magnate will read my column. Why should Schutze have all the fun?

This can't be a subsidy, can it? The city staff certainly wouldn't be less than competent enough to set up a program where it is paying Belo money, is it?

[ScurvyOaks]

Great link on the free speech issues, btw. I'd never run across those cases. Thanks.

[Paula]

Jeez, I must really be in a gripey mood today. This really irks me. If they want to police some newspapers, I've got some they can police. A couple of years ago, I cancelled my subscription for my Sunday paper because I'd gone on vacation, bothered to call and stop the Sunday paper, and then come home to find two free supplement editions on my lawn - SHOUTING TO THE WORLD THAT I WAS GONE AND MY HOUSE WAS UNATTENDED SHOULD ANYONE WANT TO BURGLARIZE ME. I called to tell them to NEVER leave unwanted supplements again and told them why it was a bad idea, but they just went right ahead and left them and are still leaving them to this day. I even sent them a letter certified mail telling them to stop. I have even written a councilman about it and my homeowners association, to no avail. Now, I realize this sounds like one of those petty things that if I had a life, I would not be worrying about -- but I DO have a life, and that is precisely WHY I need to not be taken by surprise and come home from out of town to find newspapers. I suppose I could have a neighbor pick them up, but I've always been of a mind that the fewer people know you're gone, the better. Sadly, it's precisely during holiday travel season when these supplements are issued. It's a legitimage security issue. I would put a sign out front "No handbills" except then I wouldn't get my beloved Advocate. And THEN where would I be?