Philadelphia City Council Approves Plan To Sell Advertising on City Buildings, Vehicles
By Mike Dunn
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia City Council today gave final approval to a plan to place advertising on some city buildings, but the Council president is skeptical that Mayor Nutter will move forward with the proposal.
By a 15-0 vote, councilmembers approved a measure that would for the first time allow advertising on publicly owned buildings such as recreation centers, and on city vehicles including trash trucks.
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"I'd love to see these trash trucks with trash bag wraps on them," said City Council president Darrell Clarke, who thinks several million dollars a year could be raised through the ads.
"The opportunities are limitless," Clarke tells KYW Newsradio. "I'd just like to see us move ahead, get the RFP (request for proposals) out, get a contract done, and start bringing in some much-needed revenue."
Clarke told reporters he was told that the administration "within the next week or two" would request bidders for ads on city vehicles.
A spokesman for the mayor says the administration is "working toward a request for proposals" to put ads on city vehicles, but would not put a timeline on it.
The administration contends advertising on city-owned buildings may be illegal if the structures were built with bond proceeds. But Clarke believes the mayor is moving slowly on this simply because it is not his own idea.
"Until that contract is let, until it is signed and we start bringing in revenues, I won't be comfortable with this until it's done," Clarke said today.
