Watertown's buses will not go bare while the City Council sorts out the terms of a contract with the firm that creates advertisements for the vehicles.
The City Council voted down and tabled resolutions earlier this month to extend a contract with Inkwell Graphix, Watertown, to provide advertisements for the buses. The agreement expired Friday.
"We'll wait a week or two to see what's going on," said Eugene P. Hayes, superintendent of Public Works. "It's just something we're doing in good faith."
Lawmakers have issues with a section of the contract that prohibits political, religious, sexual, racial, alcohol or subliminal messages or "any advertisement which may be regarded by the City Transit System to be inflammatory."
Some of it "is an attempt to micromanage commercial speech," Mayor Jeffrey E. Graham said last week. "We shouldn't be eliminating all of those things just to sanitize and make politically correct the sides of our buses."
At its meeting last Monday, the council again tabled the resolution, which allowed the contract to expire.
Inkwell designs, prints and installs the signs. In turn, the company keeps 60 percent of profits made from the advertisements, with 40 percent going to the city, which expects to collect $5,000 this fiscal year.
"We just wanted some sort of fail-safe mechanism," Mr. Hayes said. "We wanted to make sure that some responsible person looked at these ads before these buses left the garage."
He said the current advertisements hawking tires and cars will remain on the buses until the April 7 council meeting.
The embrace of potentially controversial advertisements is a shift from former councils.
In 1999, the City Council followed a recommendation by the city's ethics committee to prohibit advertisements with political speech. The ethics panel, which included Mr. Graham, concluded that political ads might give the appearance that the city endorses a particular candidate for public office.
Mr. Graham voted in favor of the ban on political ads but referred to himself as a reluctant supporter.
Mr. Hayes said Friday that the transit supervisor has never vetoed an ad because of its content.
Allowing tobacco companies to advertise might stir a larger beast. Some state and federal funding used to keep the transit system afloat financially mandates that tobacco products not be advertised on the buses.
"We're trying to get something in writing for the council that says something to that effect," Mr. Hayes said.
Content aside, some council members also are looking for more money out of the deal.
Councilman Joseph M. Butler inquired of City Manager Mary M. Corriveau whether shopping around for another company would yield better results for the city.
"It's just not a lot of money," he said.
Mrs. Corriveau said she will collect an inventory of the ads used in the last year, what placards are normally sold and the prices being charged to customers.
Of the slots promoted on the city Web site as being available, only a few were occupied by advertisements Friday morning.
"I'm wondering what's left when you get right down to it in terms of a potential pool of advertisers if you're going to enumerate all of these things as being too racy, too politically incorrect and too offensive to somebody," Mr. Graham said.
When the council acts at the April 7 meeting, the resolution it passes to hire a company will need a four-fifths vote because it is a franchise agreement.
"There are just a lot of questions that still need to be answered," Mr. Butler said.
