Honorary street signs have gone too far: alderman

Sun-Times:

Second Ward Ald. Bob Fioretti thinks so, and that's why he's taken up the cause of curbing the number of honorary street signs in the city. It's a tough fight -- unsuccessful attempts have been made to stop or limit the practice for decades. Fioretti's first proposal was deferred last week, but he's still working with other aldermen on ideas.

"When you have 2,000 honorary signs, what's the value of them and what's the visual pollution they cause?" Fioretti said.

Fioretti says firefighters worry that a person reporting an accident in a strange neighborhood may call 9-1-1 and give the wrong street because they're looking at the honorary sign. Mayor Daley had voiced the same concern, though he has said the designations are the exclusive purview of each of the 50 aldermen.

Another problem is deciding who gets the signs. A family who has lived on a block for generations may get an honorary sign -- which angers another family who has also lived on the block for generations, Fioretti said.
"There are a lot of city resources devoted to putting up these signs," Fioretti said. "It's wasteful."

Fioretti said if the city has to have these signs, there should be standards about who should get them, and they should be away from major intersections and boulevards to avoid confusion. Another idea is to create a three-year sunset -- removing the signs after they've been up three years.

Not sure this has really been a problem in the 6th, however the controversy has been around in the city for a while. Especially with the blow-up over an honorary street sign for the late Black Panther leader Fred Hampton hear the place where he was murdered on the west side.