Let's think about this now.

Why would anyone want to build a Burger King or a convenience store or a gas station at 13th Street and Interstate 35?

To get folks from Ames to drive out there to buy Whoppers or Twinkies or gasoline? Some, maybe. But there already are Burger Kings and convenience stores and gas stations closer to a lot of people in town. If townsfolk were your target, you probably wouldn't put your stores a couple of miles from the nearest house.

No, if you build a Burger King or a convenience store or a gas station at 13th Street and Interstate 35, you're hoping to get a lot of tourists and travelers off Interstate 35, families who want Whoppers or salesmen who need Listerine or vacationers who need gasoline.

But how are those people who are speeding along at 65 or 70 mph going to know there's a Burger King or convenience store or gas station at the 13th Street exit? Well, they won't know unless you put up a sign. And since it takes a while to slow down for an interstate exit, it should be a pretty big sign, a sign that can be seen from a ways up and down the road. That's why, in fact, you see those big signs at Interstate exits in Story City and elsewhere along the interstate.

It seems so simple.

But it isn't.

Not in this town. When it comes to signs, nothing is simple in Ames. This is the town where billboards stir passions. This is the town that doesn't like signs in a drugstore window. This is the town where it's illegal to put a sign on a rock.

Yes, a rock.

So it is natural that a flap has arisen over Krause Gentle Corp.'s request to put up a Burger King and a Kum & Go sign on the property where it plans to build on 13th Street. The signs would be on top of a pole already on the site; it would be 107 feet from the top of the Burger King bun to the bottom of the pole. That's 57 feet higher than the sign ordinance allows.

At a meeting of the Ames Zoning Board of Adjustment Wednesday night, Krause Gentle couldn't round up the three votes needed for a variance. Board member Stuart Huntington was absent, Leonard Goldman abstained and Bonnie Homstad, saying big signs are blight, voted no. That left just two votes - those of Ken Anderson and Brian McWater - and two votes weren't enough.

So no sign.

No sign, no store, says Kum & Go. And it stopped construction.

What nonsense.

Exactly how is that sign going to screw up life in Ames? Is it too tall? It's not as tall as the radio tower almost next door. Is it too ugly? It couldn't be as ugly as that half-broken, taller-than-current-law-allows Amoco sign across the street. Is it bothersome to the neighbors? No problem, says Sauer-Sundstrand Co., the main neighbor. Is it unsafe? Nope, says the city Department of Planning and Housing. Will it "alter the essential character of the area?" Nope, the department says, adding that "in fact, the construction of the new building on the site will be an improvement to this current area."

The board will reconsider the application later, perhaps in a couple of weeks.

Before it does, it might want to take a trip up and down the interstate.

The board members might want to look at those signs in Story City and everywhere else.

When they do, they'll realize those aren't signs of blight.

They're signs of progress.

Meanwhile, across the highway ...

A Grand Junction company wants to put a farm-equipment dealership just across that intersection, on the northeast corner of 13th and the Interstate. The Ames Planning and Zoning Commission, which has an advisory role because the site is within two miles of the city limits, recommended against this. The vote was 3-2.

That's another short-sighted decision.

The Story County Planning and Zoning Commission and, eventually, the County Board of Supervisors will have the final say. And that say should be "yes."