Littering: It's OK if you bully City Hall enough

The Gannett chain, owners of the Salem Statesman-Journal, are really throwing their weight around and doing their best to intimidate Salem's City Council by threatening legal action against the city if it takes any action against the weekly dumping of tons of unwanted waste paper and plastic bags on Salem's streets -- with costs of cleanup all billed to us, with all profits from the unwanted junk going to Gannett.

The photo shows just one of countless examples of Gannett's narcissistic, socially destructive behavior -- that's 15th St. NE, not too far from the Statesman-Journal presses. Four, count 'em four dumped advertising junk bags left foul the streets and block proper drainage.

The legal issues are interesting, because it shows bullying at its finest. Gannett has no legal leg to stand on if Salem passes a content-neutral ordinance that requires anyone who distributes unrequested commercial materials to collect any remaining outside a day or two after they are first dumped. That would simply be an ordinance for the public health and safety, what the legal types call an exercise of the city's police powers.

But after learning that Gannett has been threatening to throw its weight around over the issue, I realized that we can even do it better with an even more untouchable ordinance that Gannett would like even less: Require anyone distributing unrequested commercial flyers or other dropoff materials to register the dropoff with the city, provide a toll-free collection number, and to post a bond to ensure proper collection of unwanted copies -- say, a nickel for each copy to be distributed. There'd be no opportunity for censorship or government meddling: the city could not stop or hinder the dropoff. The only thing the registration would do is establish the dates where the dropoff was going to occur and the number of copies (to set the bond amount). Then, after each dropoff, anyone who didn't want the junk would call the toll-free number provided by the distributor, give their address, and the distributor would have to collect the material within 24 hours.

Any copies that remain on the street 48 hours after distribution are charged against the distributor's deposit at the rate of 50 cents each. City Neighborhood Enhancement Services staff collect the dumped-and-forgotten copies and keep the 50 cents to improve Neighborhood Services throughout the city.

Or, I suppose, Gannett could stop dumping garbage on Salem streets and making us pay for cleaning it up.