Tacoma Billboard Removal / Redux

A community working group has been assembled to develop regulatory alternatives, for Planning Commission and City Council consideration, regarding billboards in the City of Tacoma.

It's the next phase in a fight between the City and advertising giant Clear Channel that has been going on for what seems like way too many years.

In 1997 the City of Tacoma passed regulations on size, location, etc of billboards that would have made nearly 200 Clear Channel billboards nonconforming, and giving the company 10 years to remove them. 10 years later, in 2007, Clear Channel had not removed its offending billboards, and instead sued the City for infringing on its Constitutional right to free speech. The City agreed to a settlement that would have had Clear Channel remove most of its signs in exchange for the rights to post several digital billboards in central Tacoma. The settlement drew public criticism (to put it mildly), and the City backed out, not making the code changes necessary for the deal to proceed.

By 2012 the City budget was in rough shape, and City Manager T.C. Broadnax made the decision to suspend enforcement of Tacoma's billboard regulations, rather than press ahead with the costly ordeal of battling Clear Channel. That wasn't the end of the story, though, and several months later the City and Clear Channel had a new deal that would put the advertising giant's legal claims on hold, and have them remove some billboards from locations around Tacoma, fix up a few more, and give up relocation rights on others. While they were doing that, negotiations were to go forward on a workable compromise between the two parties. Since then about 70 billboard faces have been removed, leaving approximately 320 still standing.

And now, 17 years after the initial passage of those rules that put the Clear Channel billboards out of compliance, the City is forming a citizen working group to come up with suggestions for new "regulatory alternatives" related to billboards. The group will be made up of members of various neighborhood councils, business districts, the Port, the Puyallup Tribe, and representatives from government agencies as well as from Clear Channel. 

They will be working towards a set of regulations that will have as few billboards as possible in neighborhoods (presumably while still satisfying Clear Channel's interest in maintaining as many locations as it can). At the July 16 Planning Commission meeting, staff said that although the intent is not to allow digital billboards, they're not completely off the table - that will be up to the working group.

The group is scheduled to meet twice a month from now through next February, beginning with a meeting next Monday, September 22. Any recommendations that come out of the citizen working group will go to the Planning Commission, which will decide whether or not to forward them to the City Council for a final decision.

The original 1997 billboard regulations are still in place. That means that a couple hundred Clear Channel billboards are still non-conforming with the existing code. With Clear Channel's demonstrated willingness to pour a lot of money into the battle to fight those regulations, however, the City has accepted that it is out-gunned. This new working group includes Tacoma citizens, at least a few of whom have been outspoken opponents of the advertising company.

Given the history of this battle, can we expect Clear Channel to play nicely with the rest of the group?

Catch up on Exit133 coverage over the last seven years of this whole sordid saga here.