Signage: the right way and wrong way

Today I called “Tutor/Doctor’s” local franchisee, Mark Seker, to chat about the firm’s illegal signs in the right of way. I informed him that I’ve taken down more than a few of their signs.

I know Mark and, despite and even because of my criticism, it was a friendly chat.

Unlike JobDango’s obstreperous, defensive CEO Ralph King and owner Tim Baron, Mark welcomed my concern and shares it. The signs cause ill will  — although he adds that they are remarkably  inexpensive and exceedingly effective in attracting business.

He promised that his franchise would cease putting up the signs (he can’t speak for other Tutor/Doctor franchises in Portland) and said that he would raise my concern (and his) with Tutor/Doctor’s marketing people.

Apparently he and others already had been thinking about yanking the signs in the public right of way but encouraging the firm’s backers, employees and clients to put up discreet signs in their yards...on private property.

That makes some sense. Who better to tout the success of a company than its clients? And if the message were something along the lines of “My child is on the road to academic success thanks to Tutor/Doctor,” it would be an endorsement based on experience. That's hard to beat.

I even suggested that Mark and his company come up with bumper stickers for their backers to display. Bumpers are private property that happen to cruise the public right-of-way.

The same approach would work well for JobDango, if only King and Baron would listen.

“I got my job through JobDango!” is a great bottom-line message for a yard sign or a bumper sticker.

How about it Ralph and Tim?

Signbusters United to save the Commons!

Yesterday I risked life and limb to take down another of Jobdango monstrosities. Photo to the right.

Ralph King is the CEO of the employment firm and apparently has no qualms about illegally planting his company’s signs all over the public right-of-way. Firm's owner, Tim Barron, has told a fellow sign-buster that jobs are more important than keeping the public right-of-way free of clutter.

So Jobdango officials know what they are doing is illegal. The firm has even been sued in the past for promoting Jobdango by writing in chalk on downtown sidewalks.

I phoned the company once to complain and gently posit my vision of what the city would look like if every business chose this form of advertising. I was met with a verbal attack. “Sounds like you have too much time on your hands. Get a job!”

I’m not about to subject myself to further abuse. I’ll just fight back by ripping down his signs (as I've done with 40 or so). Still I confess I don’t seem to be having much effect on Ralph and Tim. They continue to hire folks to put up more, weed-like. (Update: I took down two of their signs on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway today, Feb 7)

A call to the City produced all kinds of blather about tight budgets, enforcement priorities (illegal signs are way down the list) and Catch-22 regulations. An example of the latter is that if I take down one of these signs there’s no longer a violation because there’s no evidence. The photo shown here,  I was told, doesn’t qualify as proof of a violation either. Go figure.

But I do have one hero in the city bureaucracy. That would be Marcia Dennis, who thanklessly fields complaints about graffiti and various other visual assaults on the Commons. She even hands out anti-graffiti kits stocked with rubber gloves and all kinds of solvents. Marcia has agreed to send me the names of other Portland “Sign-busters.” There must be a couple dozen of us with “time on our hands.”

It’s time to organize. A well-publicized, Michael Moore-like mass visit/sit-in at  Jobdango’s office might be in order. Or verbal complaints at a City Council session. Or a publicity campaign. Or an on-camera citizens’ arrest.

Those are all safer than tip-toeing along the edge of the Capital Highway on-ramp to Barbur while traffic whisks by just inches away.

Meanwhile, if you want the thrill of being told to get a life, give Ralph or Tim a call to complain. The number is: (503) 256-4446.

Oh, and if you actually need a job, don’t get it through Jobdango. It only encourages the company to keep blighting our city.

City needs to crackdown harder on jobdango

So the City of Portland, invoking its anti-graffiti ordinance, is suing Jobdango, the job placement outfit, for its chalk scrawlings on downtown sidewalks.

Why doesn’t the city also file suit for the company’s illegally putting its signs on utility poles and planting them along the public right-of-way?

Jobdango also has strewn I-5 with its signs between here and Salem.

As I found out, complaining to the Jobdango about its corporate litter, earns you only insults. The CEO told me, “Don’t you have better things to do? Like get a job” and then hung up.

Jobdango and 1-800-GOT-JUNK are two of the worst offenders and should be fined for all their repeated infractions. Illegal signage is clearly part of their marketing strategies.

Interestingly enough, if you go to the Jobdango web site page describing their signage, the company says not one word about its illegal signs. They must know they are indefensible — and illegal.

I urge readers to join me and a few others in taking these signs down wherever they appear. (I have probably gathered 100 in the past three or four years).

And of course, refuse to do business with these renegade firms, and spread the word.

Signs of Spring

As certain as the daffodils’ blossoming in February is the flourishing of these vinyl “flowers.”

I "picked" this pair earlier in the week. They were “growing” illegally in the public right-of-way on Bertha Boulevard not far from the I-5 on-ramp. Maximum visibility, not sunlight, caused them to “sprout” where they did.

Other invasives are soon to follow. If past seasons are any indication, foremost among them will be the 1-800-GOTJUNK and JOBDANGO blossoms. Feel free to pick those too. I will.

I called the prominent number on the College Works sign. (Get the pun? College Works. There are others too, like “A Higher Degree of Painting.”)

“The company, based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is simply a subsidiary of a larger company, National Services Group, based in Annapolis Maryland. The voice at the other end was “Steve.” He was in Irving, California. Of course I was calling about this little illegal sign infestation in Hillsdale, in Portland, in Oregon, in the Northwest.

It’s a complex world out there.

Steve apologized on behalf of College Works in Ann Arbor, but the problem, he said, was with student “business associates” who are unaware of the law in Oregon.

“We seem to be getting more calls like yours this year. I’ll pass this along.”

I suggested that he pass it directly to the executive suite. College Works’ top management, not student underlings, has ordered these signs made (in the fine print are references to business license numbers in several states.) Putting up the signs in the public right-of-way is clearly a directive from the top.

The problem begins with people who don’t care about places called neighborhoods, unless the neighborhoods happen to be their own.

We need to make them care about our neighborhoods as much as they care about their own — assuming, of course, that they do care about their own neighborhoods.

Come to think of it, they likely live in some gated, impenetrable cluster of “estates.”

Therein may lie the problem. . . .

Letter to the District Attorney

Following up on yesterday's post regarding the constitutionality of "illegal" signs on utility poles, I sent the following e-mail to DA Michael Schrunk's office today.

One question is whether it is worth the taxpayers' money for Schunk's office to respond. We'll find out. My money is on no response. How about yours?

Here's what I wrote:

I read the C1 Metro story in yesterday's Oregonian with particular interest as I regularly remove signs placed illegally on utility poles in our neighborhood of Hillsdale. In my car, I carry a long pipe, which I use to swat down signs placed beyond normal reach. As a courtesy, I often phone the numbers on the signs to inform sign owners that their signs are illegally placed on the poles and that I have taken them down. I also ask that they cease putting them up in our neighborhood, adding pointedly that because of the ordinance forbidding the signs, there could be a penalty associated with the postings. In other words, I may report repeated postings to the authorities. Then appealing to sweet reason and civic pride, I further note that if every business posted signs on our utility poles, the entire city would be a blighted maze of signs. Hence the anti-posting ordinance. I "personalize" the issue with this question: How would you like every pole in your neighborhood were covered with signs? Now, if I read The Oregonian story correctly, your office questions the constitutionality of the ordinance and has decided not to prosecute violations of it. Obviously that undercuts my argument to violators. Indeed, it may serve as an open invitation for hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses, to post all shapes and sizes of signs on Portland's utility poles, which, if I am correct, are actually owned by the utilities (Does that make them private property?) So here are some questions? If I remove these signs, which you seem to deem constitutionally legal, am I guilty of theft? Or are they considered "abandoned property" like litter in the public right-of-way, which I can legally remove? Why did the City Attorney not alert the council to the constitutionality issue when the council passed this measure? Certainly someone must have raised "First Amendment" questions. Is graffiti written on public property also protected? Are those of us who remove it guilty of some crime? If graffiti were written on a placard and placed in the public right of way, would it be legal? Would obscenity make a difference? Portland may be weird, but is it THAT weird? And what about the small stand-alone signs on wire frames which are often put up at important intersections by 1-800-Got-Junk and JobDango? (I remove those as well, using the arguments mentioned above.) If the ordinance is indeed unconstitutional, what is to prohibit the kind of massive signage blight I am describing? I do not want to get into the content of the (anti-police) message in question in the Oregonian story, but it is easy to see that a back and forth between contentious groups would add immensely to the signage problem. Finally, and as an aside, I voluntarily remove these signs to protect the neighborhood from blight. I have often thought that the city should fine and bill the owners of the signs for removal with the money being contributed to the neighborhood association affected and whose volunteers have removed the signs. I look forward to a response from your office regarding this matter.