Editor:

Although obviously not a billboard ("Coors Blight," April 12), in my opinion the biggest blight on the view of our beautiful Humboldt Bay is the pink monstrosity at the end of J Street, the Humboldt County jail.

Driving (or walking, or biking) down J Street once offered one of the most beautiful views of the bay, providing an expansive view, and inspiring in me a sense of pride in our city and county seat. Now it is blocked off; that exquisite view no longer exists. We have instead a rust dripping, basketball thumping, inmate shouting, and everlasting change to the landscape of our community.

We can take surveys and debate the ugly billboards dotting the bay (and perhaps even do something about them), but wherever was our sense of aesthetics when that permanent eyesore was conceived of and constructed, in that prime location?
 
Keri Raphael, Eureka
   
Editor:

Ah ... I don't know, sometimes I long for the kitsch of my childhood in Brooklyn, looking up at a giant image of a puppy dog tugging at the bathing suit bottoms of a toddler, showing the top of her white tush where her Coppertone tan ended. Or the behemoth likeness of Mickey Mantle, and my father introducing me to the Yankees and baseball. But that was a landscape already crowded, the style of graphic novel artistry, giving an air of fun to the cacophony of rooftops. (Then again, there were the dreadful cigarette spots, too).?It comes down to aesthetics. And beauty is in the eye of the beholder.?Billboards can be quite annoying when they clutter up open spaces. A great solution for where we live: artists vie for contracts to design and paint billboards that are not ads, but sheer art. Then the logo of the supporting business gets a spot in a bottom corner the way KHSU, KEET and other non-profit media announce their sponsors on-air.

Stephanie Silvia, Trinidad