It started in Washington, D.C., and it is spreading to the four corners of the nation - paintings in bright yellow with the message “Black Lives Matter” on prominent streets and thoroughfares.

Locally, a Stroudsburg resident petitioned borough council to allow such a message to be painted on Monroe Street in what is known as Courthouse Square in front of the Monroe County Courthouse.

Council voted 5-2 in opposition to the proposal, citing two seemingly contradictory responses from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation - one saying it is not permissible to paint messages on a roadway open to the public and the other saying that it’s up to local officials because this street is not a state road.

If I were on council, I would have voted no, too. Are our streets supposed to become visual billboards?

I mean if we jump on this bandwagon, where does it stop? How about a competing message - “Back the Blue”? Or maybe “Stop Animal Cruelty,” “Promote LGBTQ Rights,” or “Stop Abortion”?

Or perhaps we should sell street art rights to local fast food chains and businesses. How about a painting of golden arches in bright red for McDonald’s, for example? You see where I am going with this. Once you open the door to this kind of thing, where does it stop?

This is not to knock the “Black Lives Matter” movement or message. My opposition is to any kind of message on our streets for any organization, business or slogan.

The only messaging on our roads should be for safely guiding motorists and pedestrians.

The Stroudsburg request came from Tobias Sabatine, a white local activist, who also proposed having a mural drawn on Seventh Street, which parallels one side of the courthouse, and flags supporting Black Lives Matter erected throughout the community.

The borough council will address this issue again at a committee meeting before its regular meeting on Tuesday.

The concept for the “Black Lives Matter” message on streets came after muralists painted one in 50-foot-wide yellow letters on a street near the White House on June 5 and started a nationwide trend. The message is so large that it can be seen from space.

As protests erupted across the country against police brutality after the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky, Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser commissioned the mural, which stretches out over two blocks of 16th Street.

This artwork was a direct response to President Donald Trump’s representatives calling on the National Guard in early June to fire pepper balls at peaceful protesters for a photo opportunity for the president at a church across from the White House.

Since then, these bright yellow messages have shown up in San Francisco, Sacramento and Oakland, California; Raleigh, North Carolina; Dallas, Texas; Denver; and elsewhere.

In addition, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said that a block-long 375-foot “Black Lives Matter” mural will become a pedestrian plaza later this summer.

Quite frankly, I believe these street signs to be window dressing that fails to adequately address the real issues surrounding systemic racism in our country. What has already begun to happen, and what will continue to happen, is that this artwork will be vandalized by those who oppose the “Black Lives Matter” message.

In the case of Stroudsburg, for instance, it would result in an eyesore at one of the community’s most beautiful spots - Courthouse Square.

Let’s not go down this road.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com