Derby Battles Street Spam

Sign pollution.
Pole potpourri.
Street spam.
It doesn’t matter what you call it — city officials are sick of it.

“We take them down and they put them back up a few days later,” said Ron Culmo, the city’s public works director.

Culmo, who made his remarks at Thursday’s Board of Aldermen meeting, was talking about those cheap signs that pop up on utility poles throughout the area.

They offer services ranging from kickboxing to foreclosure help. Some signs are local — others are from 800 numbers from who knows where.

City officials are now trying to figure out how to combat the eyesores.

Previously, the city has tried calling the phone numbers listed on the signs to respectfully ask the owner remove them.

That didn’t work.

Joseph Bomba, an alderman representing the city’s third ward, wondered if people are carrying ladders in their cars to hang the signs because many are high up on the poles.

“They’re coming with pick-up trucks and a ladder and they’re putting them up in the middle of the night,” said Culmo, who suggested the city enact a local law that would impose a fine.

“The signs are cheap. Otherwise they are just going to keep putting them up,” Culmo said.

“It’s obvious we need to do something,” Bomba said.

To that end, Mayor Anthony Staffieri and Aldermen President Ken Hughes referred the matter to an aldermen subcommittee for further study.

Derby is not the first city to deal with the street spam scourge — far from it.

A Web site called Citizens Against Ugly Street Spam chronicles the efforts of communities across the country tackling the same issue.

The site also has a list of tools citizens may use to remove signs placed high off the ground.

A Web site in Canada, Toronto Advertising Hall of Shame, lays a guilt trip on sign spammers by posting pics of the signs — along with the e-mail address of a local legislator.