Members respond to newsletter articles and issues; selected
letters posted for review and response.
Letter from Devon Ostrom, May 2007
In response to letter from Deanne Taylor, re Beautiful
City Billboard Fee:
Since 2005, the BCBF has spent an exhaustive amount of
time consulting with various public space advocacy groups
and individuals. This has resulted in a drastically improved
policy document that is endorsed by 27 grassroots to established
organizations. The BCBF is currently under public review
and the new white paper can be downloaded here: http://www.them.ca/BCBF/BCBF-guidingdoc-v3-print.pdf
Currently there is an debate concerning billboard taxes
for public art at Spacing Wire. Please join in and give
your thoughts on the issue: Spacing Wire, 'Billboard
tax debate' May 11, 2007 http://spacing.ca/wire/?p=1879
Devon Ostrom
Curator, Them.ca
Letter from Deanne Taylor, August
2005
Re: The Beautiful City Billboard Fee
While the goals of public art and remuneration for painters
are admirable, the means suggested by Devon Ostrom -- a
tax on large billboards to fund local artworks -- will lead
to more privatized 'public space' and an uglier city. Artists
and other urban visionaries should consider carefully what
their participation in this proposal will mean.
In the mid-90's along with many Toronto residents I sat
for almost two years on the Citizens' Sign By-law Sub-Committee,
with representatives of the monster-sign industry and members
of the Planning Department that exercises almost no control
over sign-proliferation. The citizens' voluntary interest
in preserving our unique neighbourhoods from generic re-branding
proved to be no match for the highly-paid lobbyists of the
sign industry, and the sign by-laws reflect their total
victory. Since then the industry has become vastly more
powerful. Outdoor Advertising is now the prerogative of
global media-conglomerates (film/TV/radio/music/stadiums/clubs),
who re-write the by-laws and put up signs in cities all
over the world.
Toronto's amalgamation gave the sign industry one-stop
shopping at City Hall, where their ideas and financial resources
are increasingly influential. Politicians and planners,
tax-starved and desperate for cash, are selling off greater
and greater chunks of the public and natural infrastructure
of the city: hence our transportation system 'wrapped' in
ads, our vistas polluted with ads, our 'public' Dundas Square
now a shopping channel with fountains, and our sidewalks
about to be stuffed with thousands of new "bus-shelter-sized"
ad-bins.
Privatizing every surface of the great outdoors renders
the idea of a 'public realm' meaningless, and the aggression
of the sign industry should not be sanctioned further. The
'Beautiful City Billboard Fee', though pathetically small,
will act as bribe that excuses further ad-proliferation
and silences opposition. I urge all who care about the beauty
of the city not to let your acquiescence or participation
in this scheme serve to launder the profits that are made
from the plundering of our public space. If we truly wish
to employ artists to beautify the public space in our communities,
let us find a public way to pay for its modest cost.
Please make your opinions known to the Coalition,
the Roundtable, the Mayor
and City
Council.
Deanne Taylor
Playwright, VideoCabaret
August 2, 2005
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