It’s not every day that you get a ranting voicemail from Mike Dukakis, but that’s what I had last Friday, along with an accompanying e-mail filled with the kind of language you don’t normally associate with our famously reserved former governor.
Dukakis called about a column I wrote last week on the explosion of outdoor advertising on the streets of Boston, the visual pollution that constantly distracts from the unique appeal of urban life. Dukakis despised outdoor advertising when he was governor, and despises it now. And he kindly informed me that I’m missing an even bigger development at the state level.
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The Globe has to set the tone here by refusing to accept any advertising dollars for its print and electronic editions, including BOSTON.Com. In addition, the Globe must forswear any form of outdoor advertising, including traditional and electronic billboards.
Do what I did, send the following message to the Governor at:
http://www.mass.gov/governor/constituentservices/contact/#email
Governor Patrick, I urge you to join with former governor Michael Dukakis in opposing pending changes to the Office of Outdoor Advertising's rules that would permit increased use of electronic signage and thus add to the visual clutter and distractions that afflict many of our highways. Please direct Richard Davey, your Secretary of Transportation, not to approve the pending changes.
Thank you.
Your constitient,
Thanks for sending the email link. I just sent the Governor a message expressing my opposition to highway billboards.
The governor and Davies continue to make questionable moves reated to the transportation department personnel, policy, finances and investments. It contracts with an inexperienced vendor who is years late delivering commuter rail cars. It hires a new MBTA chief who leaves her prior job with a less than good performance record as documented by a KPMG independent audit. This and other recent problems plaguing other state agencies all point to the conlcusion that while the governor is great political operator, he is one bad executive manager.
While I admired Governor Dukakis in the past, I can't help but wonder how many agreements, programs and MTA, etc., were put in place during his tenure that affect this Governor's position(s) in getting money to pay for the unfounded retirement packages "doled" out now and forever. Let's hear from former Governor Dukakis and Brian about that. Point of information, I voted for Mr. Dukakis locally and nationally.
Oh Yes! Gov. Dukakis was a fine example of showing the constituency how to cutback and save the Commonwealth's expenditures. He denied use, with great publicity, of the use of a State limousine with State Police Chauffeur. He would save money by taking the MBTA from his home in Brookline to the State House. Nobody was aware of the hidden costs. Two Brookline Detectives met him each business day and escorted him to the Green Line streetcar where two MBTA Detectives wer waiting on board the streetcar to escort him to Park Street Station, where two Boston Police Detectives were waiting to escort him up the hill to the "Golden Dome", where two Capital policemen were waiting to greet him. The same routine occurred on the return trip. Add up all the overtime and detail expenditures and you could have had three limos with State Police drivers - What a phoney!
That is utter nonsense! Duke road the T on his own. He didn't need bodyguards.
Truth! Use to see him on the T regularly. Of course that little old lady or the wino might have been an undercover detail.
As if we needed more commercials in our lives. Boston is beginning to look like the city portrayed in the movie "Blade Runner"!!!
What's wrong with pimping out our highways? Just read today the state will have spent $35 million on the fallout from the crime lab debacle. The state needs money to throw at problems it creates with its rampant mismanagement of agencies. It's a sorry state we live in.
Sheeesh. Why go half way with your philosophy? Don't stop at signs, just throw open the floodgates and rake it in: Fireworks, prostitution, child pornography, heroin, monkey knife fights...there's no end to the ways the state could raise cash if we'd all just loosen up and think outside the box!
You don't think that the fact that outdoor advertising competes with the Globe for advertising dollars has anything to do with McGrory's antipathy do you? Of course not. It's all a question of aesthetics and quality of life. Nothing is more beautiful than newspapers blowing around our streets and parks. Does anything smell better than a Boston Globe delivery truck belching exhaust fumes? But, then again, beauty and "good" revenue are in the eye of the beholder.
This is the same person when he walks picks up trash along the way. It is called OCD. He can barely see over the steering wheel unless he is sitting on 3 pillows. The Duke who was handing out phony social security numbers to illegal alens, and he is preaching out ethics!! Do moonbats ever give up!!!
Do right wing fools ever give up? I didn't so. But hopefully they someday learn to see past their noses.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned light pollution. For information on this, Google - light pollution electronic billboards Restore the night sky.