Blog Banner

If you visit here regularly, you might have noticed the great expanding and contracting banner that leads the top of the blog. Today, it seems to be settling on a shorter version of the banner, rather than a taller one. It is intended to be the taller version. The Blogger help desk is full of complaints from people about it and they say something is in the works. In the meantime, we can watch as it shrinks and stretches from time to time.

But this attention on the banner gives me an opportunity to talk about the content of it (the picture) and a lingering, incipient City policy that you may not know about. It took me by surprise and to my knowledge it has never been discussed in a public forum.

To the right is the "official" City of Lake Worth "logo". On one of the early editions of my campaign flyers, I included this "logo" on the top of the back part of the hand bill. I was told by the clerks office that the City logo could not be used on campaign materials and that it had to be removed. So, we took the time to sufficiently cover each one of the offending pieces of literature with a sticker that obscured the image. In future editions of the same flyer, we removed the image completely. This being done even though the City does not have a copyright on the image and nothing is written down (in the form of an ordinance or a resolution) relating to restricting the use of this image. The rationale given for this "policy" was it might confuse people that somehow the City was endorsing the candidate - which, of course, is an absurd notion that the City would be endorsing any candidate. Furthermore, aren't all candidates running to represent the people of the City of Lake Worth and, as such, wouldn't the logo of that organization have a place on material related to any candidate? At the end of the day, it really didn't matter as the campaign complied with the "directive" given.

However, the issue reared its head again as one of my campaign mailers used an image of City Hall (the building at 7 N. Dixie Hwy) as the background and it included the City logo that can be seen on top of the electronic sign on the front lawn of the City Hall. Then I was told by the Clerk's office that a campaign couldn't use the image of a City building as part of its campaign materials and that, again, I used the logo. So, just so everyone is aware in case you plan to run for office - you cannot use the graven image of a City building in your campaign propaganda. Again - even though this is not part of any ordinance or resolution or state law or anything like that.

Imagine if this policy were carried out on a state and national level - no use of the flag, any government building in any promotional materials.

Given this, it would be well worth our while to set out strict policies about the use of the City's logo and other images. I really think that it is out-of-bounds to exclude images of the City's own buildings as that may be, and was for my campaign , one of the key parts of a candidate's platform. City buildings are public property and images of them would fall into the public realm, I believe. And, if the City is serious about protecting the use of its logo, then it should go about getting it copyrighted and be ready to act on any infringement of that copyright.

And, while we're at it, we should create regulations to better restrict the use of political yard signs. As our focus is on election related matters due to the coming ballot issues on January 29th, it might be a good time to do that now.

So, coming back to the banner used on this site - I decided to use the image of the former Casino building as the banner due to its symbolic importance as being on the City's flagship property and how it represents the aspirations of the City - realized or not. It is also not recognizable as a City building - in an attempt to avoid any infringement on this "policy". It's even harder to recognize now in its truncated version. And right now I am not running for anything.

Thought that you might be interested in this issue. And, just as I was finishing this post, the banner is back to its proper dimension. We'll see if it stays like that.