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What is clever about the logo? I ask this sincerely. If cleverness was measured on a scale of 1 - 10, then, personally, I could justify giving the logo a score of 2 to 3. I must say that there might be a whole lot that I am not aware of, and things unknown to me could have a significant impact on my scoring if I knew them.
- Why the different shades of green? This isn't a bad thing, but I just wonder why. Sunny side, shaded side?
- Why the different shape of leaves on the left vs right? Again, not bad, but why? The experts who were payed a lot of money to design the logo must have had a reason.
- Simplicity in design is good, but what about the design, besides the word "Raleigh", says Raleigh?
- Green is green and green is good, but why does the tree look more like a lollipop bradford pear tree (widely
considered the crappiest of trees) instead of an oak tree?
- Why do I imagine this logo on one of those envelopes that you get at a bank for holding cash? Ok, that
one's just me.
- It would also look perfectly appropriate on the side of a recycle bin. Again, just my opinion.
- What does that logo tell me about the "brand" of Raleigh?
- Why not make a contest and offer a prize to citizens of Raleigh to come up with a logo? Many cities have
done this. Big companies are doing this more and more using the imagination and artistic talent of their
employees while creating fun and encouraging community involvement.
- Why is the logo worth what was spent on it when it did not actually solve a problem while there are so
many real problems that could use additional funding? Or, any funding at all.
Well, per to N&O article on the logo redesign, the theory on the leaves is this:
"The new logo also leans on the city’s tree motif, using a palette of greens and yellows. It mixes rounded and blocky shapes, evoking both organic and digital themes that appear to represent the confluence of the city’s high-tech industries and forested parks and streets."
One thing I will note is that there is another person in Raleigh that holds significant power, the City Manager. This is the person that is not accountable to the public via elected as it is someone who is appointed by city council.
From the City of Raleigh's website:
Quote:
The Office of the City Manager is the administrative center of the City of Raleigh organization. In addition to the coordination and oversight of activities of all City Departments, the Office of the City Manager also provides direct staff assistance to City Council members, including the Mayor, and Council committees. The Office of the City Manager also leads the financial and budget management process for the City and directs the City's efforts to plan for the future. Staff members perform research, suggest public policy development and direction for City Council and evaluate potential public programs.
A lot of times City Council will ask the City Manager to provide suggestions on various policy points and to do research on topics of interest to them. And as noted above, the city manager does a lot of the budget work.
To elaborate: municipal governments in North Carolina must use one of the forms approved by the NC General Assembly. The law is based on the Model City Charter, published by what used to be called the National Municipal League. The MCC, or some version of it, has been adopted by most states.
All of the 34-largest municipalities in North Carolina use the council-manager type of government. City councils can and do sometimes fire their managers. In 2013 the Raleigh City Council fired Russell Allen by declining to renew his contract. Allen had replaced Dempsey Benton who had retired in 2001; Benton had served since 1983.
Folks might not remember that our new mayor MAB was one of the two Council members who wanted to retain Allen.
If citizens disapprove of a city manager, their recourse is to pressure the members of the city council to fire the manager... or to elect new members of council who will.
On a different topic, arguing about the cost of a municipal logo is as pointless as retracting your steps for the last 24 hours trying to find the penny that fell out of your pocket. The annual budget of the City of Raleigh is over $1,000,000,000. If you want to save the citizens money, fine, go and find something that adds up to $10,000,000 and even then you've identified just 1%.
To elaborate: municipal governments in North Carolina must use one of the forms approved by the NC General Assembly. The law is based on the Model City Charter, published by what used to be called the National Municipal League. The MCC, or some version of it, has been adopted by most states.
All of the 34-largest municipalities in North Carolina use the council-manager type of government. City councils can and do sometimes fire their managers. In 2013 the Raleigh City Council fired Russell Allen by declining to renew his contract. Allen had replaced Dempsey Benton who had retired in 2001; Benton had served since 1983.
Folks might not remember that our new mayor MAB was one of the two Council members who wanted to retain Allen.
If citizens disapprove of a city manager, their recourse is to pressure the members of the city council to fire the manager... or to elect new members of council who will.
On a different topic, arguing about the cost of a municipal logo is as pointless as retracting your steps for the last 24 hours trying to find the penny that fell out of your pocket. The annual budget of the City of Raleigh is over $1,000,000,000. If you want to save the citizens money, fine, go and find something that adds up to $10,000,000 and even then you've identified just 1%.
I agree completely with the bolded. I think it is largely because numbers, especially big ones, lose relatablity really quickly. As I have said on here before, if you turn dollars into time, the scale becomes much more evident. 1M seconds is 11 days. 1B seconds is 31 years. To us average Joe's and Jane's, 270K sounds like a pile of cash. In terms of an operating budget for a city, "it isn't even viewable at this scale"
Attached is a pic I saw on twitter some years ago while budget fights were happening at the Federal level. Paints things in relatable picture. Yes the numbers are stale; the national debt is now over 22T dollars. But the lesson remains the same.
On a different topic, arguing about the cost of a municipal logo is as pointless as retracting your steps for the last 24 hours trying to find the penny that fell out of your pocket. The annual budget of the City of Raleigh is over $1,000,000,000. If you want to save the citizens money, fine, go and find something that adds up to $10,000,000 and even then you've identified just 1%.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GVoR
I agree completely with the bolded. I think it is largely because numbers, especially big ones, lose relatablity really quickly. As I have said on here before, if you turn dollars into time, the scale becomes much more evident. 1M seconds is 11 days. 1B seconds is 31 years. To us average Joe's and Jane's, 270K sounds like a pile of cash. In terms of an operating budget for a city, "it isn't even viewable at this scale"
Attached is a pic I saw on twitter some years ago while budget fights were happening at the Federal level. Paints things in relatable picture. Yes the numbers are stale; the national debt is now over 22T dollars. But the lesson remains the same.
I agree that some people might find it difficult to relate to the scale that we are talking about here, but let's not get get carried away, and let's not minimize what happened here. The city spent a non trivial amount on something that provides no value to the citizens that payed for it.
But wait a second, you said that 270k out of 1,000,000,000 IS trivial. So, I am wrong, right? Well, I did a little math, and it turns out that what the city did would be equivalent to somebody spending $41.00 of my money to give me a crappy piece of art that I don't like so that I can hang it on my living room wall. I would not be happy with that deal. I don't know what your financial picture looks like, Wizard or GVoR, but you can do the same math I did. Then ask yourself if you would be happy to have somebody spend that much of your money on something you see as worthless.
Also, and this is, by far, the bigger and more important issue with this whole idea of the city spending what they did on the logo, it just makes you wonder about all of their spending decisions. Sure, I would not be happy with somebody wasting $41 of my hard earned money, but I could absorb the hit. The problem is, it wouldn't end there. They would buy me that stupid piece of art for my living room wall, and another for my bedroom wall. They would buy me a new mailbox, and a new comforter, and a new bike, and, and, and. And, it would all be at an exorbitant price.
I think everyone can see, in the grand picture, the money spent on the logo isn't devastating, but there is other waste, too. Add it all up, and things get ugly.
Also, the nature of federal debt is completely dissimilar to pretty much all other debt including the debt of a city. It's a different animal in more than just scale.
I agree completely with the bolded. I think it is largely because numbers, especially big ones, lose relatablity really quickly. As I have said on here before, if you turn dollars into time, the scale becomes much more evident. 1M seconds is 11 days. 1B seconds is 31 years. To us average Joe's and Jane's, 270K sounds like a pile of cash. In terms of an operating budget for a city, "it isn't even viewable at this scale"
Attached is a pic I saw on twitter some years ago while budget fights were happening at the Federal level. Paints things in relatable picture. Yes the numbers are stale; the national debt is now over 22T dollars. But the lesson remains the same.
It's not about the $270,000. It's about the rest of the $1,000,000,000 spent and calls into question fiscal management decisions on the whole.
I agree that some people might find it difficult to relate to the scale that we are talking about here, but let's not get get carried away, and let's not minimize what happened here. The city spent a non trivial amount on something that provides no value to the citizens that payed for it.
But wait a second, you said that 270k out of 1,000,000,000 IS trivial. So, I am wrong, right? Well, I did a little math, and it turns out that what the city did would be equivalent to somebody spending $41.00 of my money to give me a crappy piece of art that I don't like so that I can hang it on my living room wall. I would not be happy with that deal. I don't know what your financial picture looks like, Wizard or GVoR, but you can do the same math I did. Then ask yourself if you would be happy to have somebody spend that much of your money on something you see as worthless.
I would say most people have a hard time fully, truly appreciating the scale of numbers in these types of discussions, myself included; and I'm far from "not a math person". However, I realize that isn't the point you and I are focused on.
I am not trying to minimize or trivialize qualitatively the 270K spend; there is nuance to the position I shared directly toward you and then one which I shared with wizard. The two following statements are not mutually exclusive.
The 270K spend for a city logo seems like a richly sum to pay for a civic entity to spend tax payer funds on when there isn't a ton of tangible value add to Raleigh's citizens quality of life as a result.
AND
If you (royal you) are concerned about what your town/city/state/federal spends your money on and want to be active on mitigating waste (And I agree we should all be), chasing the nickle and dime stuff is sorta like tilting at windmills (IMHO).
In a vacuum, I can't think of a single reason why a city would spend 270K for a logo when, as you pointed out, you could have made it a "contest" for people around town to try and win. I don't question the desire to have one; even if it is only a "feel good, look at us we're growing up" thing, but that is about where my not having questions ends.
As for the $40 thing, it represents about the same amount to me. I have to say that I don't count the value proposition of every $40 that gets spent. Obviously I get the beef with the "I don't want them spending my money on that shizz", I guess I just have my angst aimed beyond the pet projects.
Quote:
Originally Posted by carlito2002wgn
Also, and this is, by far, the bigger and more important issue with this whole idea of the city spending what they did on the logo, it just makes you wonder about all of their spending decisions. Sure, I would not be happy with somebody wasting $41 of my hard earned money, but I could absorb the hit. The problem is, it wouldn't end there. They would buy me that stupid piece of art for my living room wall, and another for my bedroom wall. They would buy me a new mailbox, and a new comforter, and a new bike, and, and, and. And, it would all be at an exorbitant price.
I think everyone can see, in the grand picture, the money spent on the logo isn't devastating, but there is other waste, too. Add it all up, and things get ugly.
Absolutely. Regardless of how liberal my views are, you will never seen me defend either the prices our governments "accept" to pay for goods/services they do nor the apathy by which said expenditures are then administered/delivered.
On this specific logo, if we can find another 40 of these type projects in the budget, I would say we are onto something.
Quote:
Originally Posted by carlito2002wgn
Also, the nature of federal debt is completely dissimilar to pretty much all other debt including the debt of a city. It's a different animal in more than just scale.
I attached the screenshot of the Federal debt as a means to show how making numbers relatable is helpful. I was not attempting to juxtapose Raleigh credits and debits against it.
$250,000 is merely a microcosm. drop in the bucket? sure. Multiply that by 100x across several decisions up to $1 billion and we have a basic understanding of how they waste our money and yet ask for more. Those are expensive windmills.
What's your math on that? $270K is less than one dollar per capita of the City's population. Or another way of looking at it: research from the St Louis Fed says that the Total Gross Domestic Product for the Raleigh MSA was $84 billion in 2018. Raleigh is about 20% of the MSA, so GDP for the City itself would be about $17 billion. To reach $41 out of your own pocket on the basis of proportional income or assets, you must be one of the wealthiest people in the City.
$250,000 is merely a microcosm. drop in the bucket? sure. Multiply that by 100x across several decisions up to $1 billion and we have a basic understanding of how they waste our money and yet ask for more. Those are expensive windmills.
This may come as a surprise, but there is actually a remedy within our systems of government that can be leveraged by citizens when it comes to elected officials not doing what the people sent them there to do. I realize we live in a post Fiscally Conservative world largely; where neither party are really that anymore. (and yes, I realize the person with the purse strings isn't directly elected....but the people who appoint that person are)
But the fact remains, if people in Raleigh don't want their money going towards these types of things, I sure as hell hope they are doing more than yelling at clouds on a internet board.
As I said two pages back, you want better government? Be better citizens.
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