Dear Managment Doctor,

I think a possible good topic for discussion in your e-newsletter would be if people have had any success (or lack thereof) in dealing with the proliferation of these small white "singles" website advertising signs. I have seen them all over our city, University City, MO, but also all over the St. Louis metropolitan area. They are basic 1' x 2' yard signs that say the name of a municipality followed by the word singles to form a website name. In St. Louis we have signs for UCsingles.com, vintaparksingles.com, claytonsingles.com, stlouissingles.com and the list goes on for almost every municipality in the St. Louis area.

There is no ownership information on these websites (and obviously they are not on the up and up if you cannot even get a phone number to contact them - I hope people aren't giving money). We have unsuccessfully tried to ticket the owners of the websites but have had no success in finding out who they are without actually going to Delaware (where the website operators seem to be located) with a court order asking for that information. The signs are everywhere and clutter up our street-sides and peoples' lawns. I have never seen someone actually putting up the signs either (but would love to catch someone doing it red-handed someday).

When I was in Florida on vacation I noticed them all over down there, too. So I am thinking that these signs must be everywhere in the country as well. Certainly, some savvy zoning administrator or planner has had success in dealing with this problem. If anyone has, please lead me in the right direction.

Frank B. Hill
University City, MO

Dear Frank, They haven't made it to the San Diego area yet. Let's see what our readers have to say. The Management Doctor