Re: “Seattle council considers 8-foot-tall digital billboards in downtown” (Could 9, Native Information):
These flashing screens can have a deleterious impact on the city character of our metropolis. Every kiosk will permit static and transferring photos. Once we try to wean kids from their screens and we all know how detrimental that is to the social material, why on this planet would we approve this for our metropolis?
This program violates the town signal code and would by no means be permitted beneath the code. The decision granting “conceptual approval” to the thought is a shameful method of undermining longstanding metropolis coverage.
The impetus for this can be a shiny, shiny bauble for World Cup 2026 guests. That may be a monthlong occasion. Reasonably than deal with actual wants of downtown, this can be a advertising and marketing rip-off that advantages IKE Sensible Metropolis and offers away our public realm for a pittance. These have been positioned in a lot of cities with the identical design and homogenize public area. They get vandalized and ignored by the general public. Cluttering up our sidewalks with digital kiosks is antithetical to making a welcoming metropolis.
I urge the Metropolis Council to vote “no.”
Ellen Sollod, Seattle, former vice chair, Seattle Design Fee
