Tuesday, January 02, 2007

marring the streetscape, for three administrations

Once again, I'm asking if anybody knows who is responsible for the omnipresent Omni Media advertising kiosks which have been marring the metropolitan Cleveland streetscape since Mike White contracted for their installation as one of his final cruel pranks. The PD article at the link has a date of 01/04/2001, nearly 6 years ago. Now that yet another year is passing, we should have some report of the revenue the City of Cleveland garners from these design monstrosities. I've seen nothing lately.

Can anybody tell us who controls these kiosks, who books the advertising, and how much the city gets for allowing its streets to be used so poorly? Who benefits? Is it some French company, perhaps the same one that currently controls the ads at the airport?

Why is our accountability so poor around here? Don't we deserve to know whether these things are delivering as advertised? There are 195 of them, according to the article, so who is responsible for them? I don't think this is asking too much, to know about assets with easements on our common city property. If they're not productive, then perhaps we should get them off the streets; to me, they are unwelcome visual clutter. If we are going to make a point of being a breeding ground of artists and other genteel, sensitive people who hold dear proportion and integration, we can't go around being so thoughtlessly tacky.

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