Tacoma's Billboards May Stay Put
Enforcement of Tacoma’s laws regulating billboards has been suspended for the remainder of 2012.
The discussion around billboards in Tacoma has been going on for years more than a decade now. Last August many in Tacoma celebrated the passage of legislation requiring billboards like those owned by Clear Channel be brought into compliance or taken down. March 1 was the deadline for the company to do so. Rather than comply, and remove its billboards still in violation of the City’s zoning codes, the company has taken Tacoma to court. Last week enforcement of that ruling was put on hold.
The City is in a budget crunch, without a lot of spare cash to go around. Clear Channel is known for litigating municipalities into the ground when they try to fight it. TC Broadnax, Tacoma’s new City Manager, cited budget concerns last week when he suspended enforcement of the revised billboard law for the remainder of 2012. On principle it feels wrong to let Clear Channel ignore the law, even if it’s only for a year, but the legal fight against Clear Channel will be an expensive one, to say the least.
How do you feel about it? Should the City be sticking to its guns and pushing the matter forward? Or is it an unpleasant, but sensible move to not take on such a costly legal battle in light of our current finances? And how do you feel about the move being made with little or no public preamble?
Some selected stories previously from Exit133:
March 2011: A Comment on Tacoma’s Billboard Problem
August 2010: The Billboard Compromise – Background Data
July 2010: Tacoma City Council Meeting for July 27, 2010
July 2007: Constitutions Matter… We Hear
Read more from The News Tribune.
Filed under: Billboards
5 comments
C Council watcher March 14, 2012
Lay off the useless economic development department and use the money to fight clear channel. I read on one of the blogs that the cost to opperate the economic development department is the same as the coat of lawsuit (9 mil).
Tearing down the blight will bring more businesses to town than they do.
F fredo March 14, 2012
95% of Tacomans have indicated they want less billboards. They want a prettier town to live in. I think a municipality enjoys the privilege of enacting reasonable restrictions on billboards in order to serve the public in the way they have requested. Doubt if a court will strike down a restriction which is reasonable on it’s face.
W Weyland Duir March 14, 2012
I blame Clear Channel for its willfull non-compliance of Tacoma’s billboard ordinance and total lack of respect for Tacoma neighborhoods and citizens. From day one, it has been evident that CC never intended to comply with the ordinance but was using that as a carrot to get the digital billboards out there.
It’s a tough first call for Broadnax coming right out of the gate, but I concur with his decision. Tacoma does not have the funds to pursue a legal battle this year.
It is not up to the grassroots to hold Clear Channel accountable. CC won’t respond to e-mails and letters from Tacoma citizens urging them to comply with the ordinance how would they react if everyone of their customers we bombarded with e-mails and letters from citizens stating that they are boycotting their goods and services because CC is in violation of Tacoma’s billboard ordinance. Who do you think CC’s customers would choose in this fight – CC and its billboards or consumers with dollars?
K Kyle Alm March 14, 2012
I know that signs are unpopular, and at the risk of sounding unpopular this is a result of the City of Tacoma overreaching after it had already reached settlement with Clear Channel for taking down the non-conforming, aka no longer conforming with an amended code, billboards. The City should have taken the had taken the deal to remove over 300 non-conforming billboards in exchange for a much smaller number, less than 40 IIRC, new digital signs.
Hindsight is always 20/20 and a few people thought they had easy political points to score against billboards. It’s pretty clear that the City never had the budget to go through with it. But if 95% of Tacomans want less (fewer?) billboards then shouldn’t the City have taken the original settlement with Clear Channel?
C Council watcher March 15, 2012
Let’s start a kickstarter campaign to fund the removal. Demand of the city that if we raise the 10% then the must follow through! If we can get every tacoman to put in $2.25 then we have the 10% match.($900k)