Street talk: 'Titletown' trademarked By Tom Murphy News-Chronicle Please, please! This newspaper, and some others, recently annointed Tampa Bay "Titletown." The News-Chronicle, on the back page devoted to sports highlights, carried the big black words: "New Titletown." The moniker was misapplied by many in the media after the Tampa Bay Storm beat Arizona for the Arena Football League championship. Because the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the NFL title last winter, someone someplace somehow thought the Florida city deserved the appellation. As it happens the salutary "Titletown" was trademarked in the 1960s when the Green Bay Packers began their roll to victories in what would become Super Bowls I and II. "Titletown" belongs to the city. The impulse to protect the name grew out of a coffee klatch at Schweger's Drug Store, a fixture for decades on the first floor of the Northern Building at Adams and Walnut streets. City Attorney Clarence Nier, Paul Janquart and Jack Yuenger, advertising manager of the Press-Gazette, dreamed up the trademark idea. Janquart, the only survivor in the trio, is now Brown County clerk of courts. He also served as city clerk for years. Nier, who later became a circuit court judge, handled the legal work and Yuenger created the publicity and logo. Janquart will attest to the efforts. Yuenger and Nier both are deceased. The infringement might have been worse. That the minor league Arena Football League was involved appreciably discounted the renaming. Had the New Jersey Nets, a lousy overall team with a very good guard, Jason Kidd, won the 2003 NBA title, East Rutherford, N.J., was ready to claim the mantle of Titletown. Thank goodness for Tim Duncan and David Robinson of the San Antonio Spurs. ESPN, headquartered in Connecticut with ties to everthing east of and bordering on the Hudson River, was ready to relabel East Rutherford. Other cable systems with a modicum of sports broadcasts were eager to join the eastern bandwagon. The New York Times, because it has leadership in its sports department that is not evident in other sections of the newsroom, probably would not have followed suit. TIME ON THEIR HANDS Doesn't the Green Bay City Council - most specifically that member best known as a connoisseur of fine sausage, Ald. Guy Zima - have better things to do than harass downtown hot dog vendors? Such as creating a metropolitan water system that ultimately will benefit all users of today's city-only pipeline. Such as lobbying in Madison to assure Green Bay's portion of shared revenues, Relying on state-wide municipal associations, with memberships so disparate they're hog-tied, isn't the vehicle. Such as creating a vibrant downtown shopping and entertainment area. Such as working with industry to maintain a tax base rather than driving it elsewhere (Mr. Zima and Agrilink/Larsen); or Koch Industries, the parent of C. Reiss Coal Co., to move coal storage piles north; or finding an up-and-coming insurance company and making it lucrative to locate its corporate headquarters downtown. Zima has said he's received complaints about littering and loitering from police and restaurant operators. The police should know they have more time to sort out the inebriated if the revelers are hanging around a hot dog stand rather than jumping in a vehicle right at bar time. Zima always has been loathe to identify his sources. Is it perhaps because he's most often his own pipeline in search of a headline? Fortunately, it looks like Zima barked at the wrong dog and common sense will prevail once again. Curbside: What in the world is the city's larger newspaper trying to say when it writes a lead Sunday piece on the ethnic and gender make-up of the Green Bay Packers board of directors? Whatever the aim, it missed. The board is a pretty accurate reflection of that knowledgeable section of our extended community which has contributed most to the franchise...More on the Packers: fail, city, fail, in your attempt to sell naming rights to Lambeau Field. Better to start selling advertising on light poles, the backs of seats in boxes and club sections and, yes, even (as we suggested a couple of years ago) on chalk yardline stripes. Murphy, a longtime area business writer, writes a weekly column for This Week. Contact him by calling 920-432-2941, sending mail to P.O. Box 2467, Green Bay, WI 54306-2467 or by sending e-mail to [email protected].