Add Springfield to the list of communities pig-piling on the Republican newspaper for its infamous little purple bags.
At issue is the Republican’s “Extra” publication, a weekly supplement that the newspaper delivers free to homes once a week. “Extra,” on its face, is a seemingly innocuous little publication, typically a few recipes and travel stories pulled from the wire services stuffed into a bag along with supermarket circulars and other ads.
But in fact, the supplement has generated a surprising level of anger and frustration from homeowners who say they just don’t want the darn thing, don’t want to be responsible for recycling its contents or figuring out what to do with yet another of those banes of modern, green-conscious living: the plastic bag.
Add to that the apparent haphazard delivery system, which, in some neighborhoods at least, amounts to a driver zipping down the street, tossing the papers out of his or her windows. Reports also suggest that those troublesome purple bags have a soft spot for landing in puddles and dirty snow banks, where they cruelly lie in wait for snowblower blades. (In my neighborhood, at least, the bags are usually, but not always, neatly hung from a little plastic hook that an elderly gentleman who delivered the papers for a while attached to my mailbox.)
Efforts to stop the purple scourge appear to have begun in Northampton and Easthampton, and, like all successful resistance movements, have steadily spread. A “Stop the Republican from Delivering Supplements” site was started on Facebook. The issue made its way on to the agendas of BPW meetings, and local politicians began taking stands on the problem. Meetings were held with representatives from the Republican, who offered that homeowners could ask to be put on an “opt-out” list—a solution that’s not exactly been embraced by residents who don’t see why they should have to ask that a company not dump something they consider trash on their driveway.
*
The “Extra” controversy has been covered in Hampshire County media, particularly the Daily Hampshire Gazette and NorthamptonMedia.com. (Disclosures: the Gazette is owned by the same parent company as the Advocate; Northampton Media publisher Mary Serreze has freelanced for the Advocate.) Notably absent from the media coverage has been the Republican itself. But that doesn’t mean that homeowners in the Republican’s hometown aren’t also fuming over the invading baggies.
Late last month, Melvin Edwards, president of the nonprofit Keep Springfield Beautiful (and Ward 3’s city councilor), wrote to Republican officials about the problem. “As you are aware, the city of Springfield is in a constant uphill battle with the troubling issues of urban blight and litter in our community,” Edwards wrote. “Extra,” he said, was only adding to the problem.
Edwards went on to cite a city ordinance—”No person, while a driver or passenger in a vehicle, shall throw or deposit litter upon any street or any other public place within the city, or upon private premises”—that the Republican appears to be violating with its delivery of the supplement. While the ordinance “would appear to give allowance for newspapers, it does so with the condition that any such material not be ‘carried or deposited by the elements upon any sidewalk, street, alley, or other public place or upon any private property,'” Edwards continued.
“While we understand and respect that the Republican Newspapers needs to address the goals and expectations of your paid advertisers, it is also true that the vast majority of your deliveries are unsolicited, and that your company is not exempt from complying with this city’s laws that afford us the most basic tenets of decent, clean living in our communities,” he wrote, asking the newspaper to “take the appropriate steps to formulate alternative, more ecologically responsible methods of delivery that do not negatively impact our environment and that respect the peace of the residents of our fine city.
“Working together, we can make Springfield a cleaner and safer city for everyone,” Edwards concluded.
Somewhat less amiable was the response the supplements inspired from Bill Dusty, who writes the Springfield Intruder blog and describes himself as a “South End resident and homeowner (for now).”
“‘Extra — Extra!’–get your trash off of our properties!” Dusty recently wrote. When he complained about the bags, he said, “I had been told that, sheesh, all I have to do is ask them to please stop, and they will stop littering my property. But is that really what we taxpayers have to do to stop littering? Ask the perpetrators to please stop?”
Dusty has taken his camera and toured the city, snapping shots of the bedeviling bags roaming free on sidewalks and driveways and trash-filled yards. “Do you think the folks who live in this house will be reading their copy of ‘Extra!?'” he pondered alongside a photo of a vacant house, its doors and windows boarded, with a purple newspaper bag among the junk in its garbage-strewn driveway.
“It didn’t take long to rack up 30 photos of the offending baggies. I could have taken 60 photos in the same amount of time, but I was selective in my choice of shots,” Dusty said.
“As I drove around, I wondered how the businesses who advertise in the ‘Extra’ would feel if they knew a healthy percentage of their paid ads ended up on sidewalks and vacant properties, read by no one,” he continued. “And that if only the Republican would take more care in their placement, even though the circulation might go down, the actual eyes looking at the advertisements would actually increase.
“[But] I guess, too, it’s not about actual readership, after all. It’s all about the numbers, real or imagined,” Dusty wrote.
Is relief on the way? At a March Northampton BPW meeting, Northampton Media reports, city engineer and code enforcement officer James Laurila asked that residents call him whenever “Extra” bags land in their driveways or other illegal spots, as opposed to their mailboxes. Under the city’s anti-litter ordinance, the Republican could be fined $100 for each violation. Could going after the newspapers’ pocketbook (which, like just about every newspaper’s pocketbooks these days, is pretty thin) do the trick?
