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Billboards, signs, scenery and citizens A presentation of Scenic Alabama

Scenic alabama sign workshop presentation

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Billboards, signs, scenery and citizensA presentation of Scenic Alabama

Where we are

New allies in an old battle

Sen. Lamar Alexander was honored by Scenic America in 2012. While governor of Tennessee in the 1980s, Alexander introduced legislation to prohibit tree cutting, saying, “tourists come to Tennessee to see the scenery, not the billboards.”

Robert Burch sued the Montana Department of Transportation for permitting these two billboards along Interstate 90 across the road from his 28,000-acre ranch.

Chronicles of The Billboard Wars: Preview

Eliminate Local Control

Utah, Missouri, South Dakota, Alabama

"I think it is pretty commonly held here … that billboards in the numbers (Salt Lake City has) and where they're located are a blight on the city and its natural landscape," he said. "That's the view I hold. I don't hide it.“Mayor Ralph Becker

Deseret News: A pig in the parlor: SB136 is misguided effort

Who's the boss? Utah Legislature, Salt Lake City battling over local issuesHerbert says cities are 'subservient' to the state

Utah’s largest billboard company pushed legislation that would prohibit ALL Utah jurisdictions from enacting or enforcing any restrictions except by using eminent domain.

And eminent domain could not be used to prevent a billboard from being changed to a digital sign.

SB136, sponsored by Sen. Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, would override local ordinances, giving the billboard companies the authority to upgrade any billboard they want with a digital billboard, as long as it is not within 150 feet of a home.

The outcry from citizens and the press has slowed the progress of this bill. There has been no action since March.

Good for business or bad for scenery? Salt Lake City renews battle with billboard industry

A 2011 Missouri bill, which did not succeed, had a provision that would have allowed the billboard industry to bypass local ordinances.

A bill forbidding cities like Rapid City from banning new billboard technology died in the House of Representatives after falling four votes short of the total needed to override Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s veto.

In June, 2011, Rapid City’s voters overwhelmingly approved prohibiting any new digital billboards

There’s a provision in HB 2543 that prohibits cities from enacting electronic billboard rules that are more restrictive than the rules set for state freeways.

What could happen if local sign regulations are stopped? In 2008, this was one of Scenic Alabama’s visual aids in fighting such a bill.

ALDOT regulations give local laws precedence over state regulations.

Cities which want to control their signs, should be aware of any attempts to override local control.

Convert nonconforming billboards to digital

Missouri

The bottom line is that Missouri has too many billboards. They have turned Interstate 70 into a visual nightmare and have created the wrong impression of Missouri as an unappealing state to drive through. Legislation should be aimed at reducing billboard clutter, not lighting it up with digital bells and whistles. Kansas City Star

A Missouri bill would change state law to allow hundreds of nonconforming billboards to be replaced with digital ones.

MODOT is proposing a $3-4 billion rebuild of I-70 through rural Missouri; sticking to current law would permanently remove hundreds of billboards at just a tiny fraction of overall costs.

SB 607 also changes state law to allow grandfathered billboards to be relocated to new spots as part of state highway improvement projects, at taxpayer expense.

Digital billboards

Arizona, Tacoma WA, Washington

Arizona has a new law that allows electronic billboards in the Phoenix area and much of southwestern Arizona but not the rest of the state, including areas where astronomy observatories are located.

Washington House Transportation Committee chair Judy Clibborn: “I don’t like them myself, and there are people who hate them a lot. Most of our members from the north drive through Fife and see [the flashing billboards installed on tribal land along I-5]. They don’t want more of those.”

August 2011: Tacoma’s City Council voted to quickly remove at least 190 billboards, and possibly dozens more. The council voted to tighten zoning restrictions, set a new deadline for removing signs that don’t comply and ban digital billboards.

In doing so, the council backed out of a legal settlement with Clear Channel that it had approved unanimously last year.

The council received a late blast of comments from hundreds of residents who objected to adding a juiced-up form of commercial intrusion, visual blight, and driver distraction to the roadways.

Such complaints were enough to persuade Tacoma’s city council and mayor to reverse an earlier decision allowing Clear Channel to convert many of its boards there, and face the inevitable lawsuit.

Tacoma and King County, Washington residents demonstrate in favor of banning digital billboards.

Circuit Judge Wally Eklund upheld Rapid City’s denial of Lamar Outdoor Advertising’s request to convert six of its current signs to digital billboards.

Lamar made the request shortly before the June election where the City’s voters approved prohibiting any new digital billboards. The City denied the permits; Lamar appealed to the ZBA which upheld the denial. Lamar then appealed to the 7th Circuit Court in Rapid City.

In upholding the City’s denial of the permits, Judge Eklund ruled that substantial evidence supported the City’s decision and Lamar’s reliance on any past City approvals was not reasonable.

Content Restrictions

St. Louis court ruling, First Amendment issues

The city of St. Louis lost in federal court over action against a painted mural expressing a political opinion.

The court said a sign the same size as the plaintiff’s would not be regulated if it were a religious, fraternal or civil symbol. The city code used the content of a sign to determine if it was, in fact, a "sign," the ruling said.

When is a sign not a sign?

Roos commissioned the 360-square-foot mural in 2007 on the side of an apartment building. It proclaims "End Eminent Domain Abuse" inside a red circle with a slash and is visible from Interstates 44 and 55.

The city ordered Roos to remove it, saying it violated city sign regulations, and Roos and two groups he founded sued.

Content restrictions can invalidate your sign ordinance.

Regulate signs as structures.

The distinction between on premise and off premise signs can be construed a content restriction.

Getting Rid of Trees

Florida law, poisonings, Kentucky, North Carolina

Billboard companies claim these landscaping improvements interfere with their business – so they have to go! The Florida legislature, regrettably, agrees, and passes a law in 2008 to give billboards the priority.

There, doesn’t that look better?

Kentucky considered a bill allowing billboard companies to trim trees and other vegetation in public rights-of-way.

The Transportation Cabinet opposed it due to the extra work and expense it would create.

The bill gave the cabinet just 45 days to approve or reject a "view permit," and rejections could be quickly appealed at no cost. This would reward billboard companies that run out the clock by submitting incomplete applications.

The bill's provisions for "non-conforming" billboards would allow owners of non-conforming billboards to obtain permits to repair them and trim vegetation.

A law that went into effect on March 1 allows billboard companies to ask the N.C. Department of Transportation for a permit to clear a 340-foot window in front of billboards along state roads. The previous window was 250 feet.

That the new law shifts power from local governments and places it in the hands of the N.C. DOT.

If billboard companies remove trees, they have three options: They can replant the area with a state-approved landscaping plan; they can remove two nonconforming billboards anywhere in the state; or they can pay the state for the loss of the trees.

Lamar’s Florida company ordered its employees to poison trees around billboards, according to evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit.

The employee described a “hit and run” attack with a machete, a hospital mask and a container herbicide.

A supervisor and a second worker support the claims in testimony.

The worker testified that his regional manager ordered the policy in the Tallahassee, Fla., area.

Tricks of the Trade

Emergency Messaging, Better for Business?

Emergency Messaging – how the industry pitches digital billboards to communities.

What really happens: advertising and controversy.

•Many, if not most, of the crimes posted on the boards are actually long-ago cold cases rather than emergencies.

•Flashing them across the landscape instills an exaggerated, even deceptive fear of crime.

•AMBER alerts posted days or weeks after the fact are useless at saving children abducted by criminals rather than feuding parents.

•Nearly all the “emergencies” broadcast are really just routine highway alerts, and most states have existing message boards for that purpose.

.

Billboard opponents question the value of the emergency message alerts promoted by billboard companies.

International News

Rome today, Sao Paolo five years later

Advertising firms planted thousands of illegal billboards across Rome.

The billboards are often erected along curbs, towering over head height and obscuring bus stops and street signs. One was so close to passing traffic on Via Tuscolana that a moped driver and his passenger were killed when they collided with it.

There has been a proliferation of protest websites and a demonstration outside Rome's town hall, and more than 10,000 Romans have backed a new law to limit the number of billboards.

Sao Paolo – 5 years after billboard ban. most citizens and some advertising entities report being quite pleased with the now billboard-less city. A survey this year found that a 70 percent of residents say the Clean City Law has been "beneficial.”

"São Paulo’s a very vertical city," Vinicius Galvao, a journalist, said in an interview with NPR. "That makes it very frenetic. You couldn’t even realize the architecture of the old buildings, because they were just covered with billboards and logos and propaganda. And there was no criteria."

What we envision for our highways and cities.

What we get

without

planning and

control.

Find out more, contact us, and get involved!

www.scenicalabama.org

www.scenicala.blogspot.com

Facebook: ScenicAlabama

Twitter: @scenicalabama

[email protected]

[email protected]