DOES MIAMI NEED A 600-FOOT JUMBOTRON?

      On Monday, bad taste may reach new heights in the City of Miami, 633- feet, to be exact.
That's how tall "Innovation Tower" will be, the proposed skyscraper/billboard for downtown Miami near I-95 and NW 10th Street.

Last Monday the city commission were slated to cast their votes for this towering television disguised as a building.
      The entire structure will function as a billboard covered with 85,000 bright, little lights to create animated ads.  It will be a 600-foot, 24/7 Jumbotron.  
 Simkin's tower, sans Jumbotron, looks like a paintbrush.

Imagine watching an  Depends commercial from twenty miles away. 

   I wish I was making this up.

    But we saw the tower  thrusting up from last Friday's Miami Herald. This was the first time the public learned of this hair-brained idea. The article had its developer, Michael Simkins touting, "it will elevate the city's brand on a global scale". 
   If our brand is "Greedy, Ugly, and Stupid" he's right. Global too, the whole world will be laughing at us (again). 
   Miami had class when it banned billboards a few years ago. Aesthetics began to rule the roads. Then the billboards and banners slowly started rising as Miami's commissioners lowered their standards.

   The Herald pointed out that Simkins has been quietly pushing this project for over a year.  He's hired one commissioner's aunt to lobby for the project and has stuffed $5000 into the pockets of another commissioner's wife (this being Teresa, wife of Marc Sarnoff, who's "pocket" holds her city commission campaign fund).  I'm pretty sure how she'd vote on this one.

    When I told a female friend of Simkin's proposal she grew irate saying, "I'm so sick of men running this town with their concrete erections."  Maybe she's right, perhaps we need a commissioner of the fairer sex. Four are running for Sarnoff's seat, along with five men.

    Two-acres of television in the sky will give Miami another black eye.  Anyone with half-a-brain knows that. But what of our city commissioners who have less than half-a-brain? 
Call them.  Send them e-mails today.  Let them know you don't want Miami's skyline mucked-up by a 600-foot Jumbotron.  
  
   Miami can do better than "greedy, ugly, and stupid".
                            ___________
 Note, 4-30-15:
  At last Monday's meeting, the commissioners faced a roomful of people opposing the glowing monster (they were not allowed to speak).   The commissioners decided to postpone their decision until the summer (June 28th).  There will be less people in town then to oppose their greedy, hair-brained, nightmare-of-a-tower.
 
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