Steve Huegli just called me to let me know that things are happening with the sign we all know and love (and now miss). He has what he calls a "loose coalition" of concerned people who are working to get the sign back up. I was kind of hopeless until I talked to Steve tonight.

Here's a video story from KRON today about the sign.

You can see them tearing it down and the horrible new billboard that has been put up (against the law). The thing that is different about this situation (aside from it being the best goddamn sign I know of) is that we have leverage. A fellow named Steve Parr has the sign. He recovered it from the scrap yard. It's possible to get it put back up and fully restored (possibly lighted like it originally was).

Here's an initial website with a mailing list signup.

80 percent of us voted that no new billboards could be erected in the Mission and this is illegal. The owner did not have a permit to do this. There is something we can do. There's an article coming out in the Guardian and Steve called me today to encourage me to do more and to let me know what had happened.

Most people who know about the sign going down have told me "yeah, that sucks" but now I realize that these people might be able to do something if they have more information and opportunity. That's why I'm trying to spread some info. The guy that put the billboard up has invested about 20K in the sign so he's not going to be too happy to take it down. However, the proposition he is in violation of says that he can be charged 5 thousand dollars a day for every day the sign is up.

We might be able to get donations for its restoration and support from the city and others to classify the sign as historic or something (I know little about this, but there are architects involved) and this may, in some way, remunerate the guy who's trying to make money with the top of his building.

I'm putting my 17 Reasons stickers up all over the Mission and I'm gonna give some to Steve to hand out to people he's working with. Rose and I are gonna make t-shirts tonight. (If you look closely you can see my photo in the KRON video). Yay.