Luckily for my kitchen I didn’t have food or coffee in my mouth when I read the complaint below from an attorney for the N.C. Outdoor Advertising Association (a.k.a. the billboard lobby), about North Carolina’s Department of Transportation.
First, the backstory. The billboard industry wants to be able to legally cut more trees in front of billboards, so that you, the motoring public, can better view those ads. (You might say it’s as if your friendly local newspaper wanted permission to kill more housecats if they have the nerve to jump into your lap and obscure your views of the Queen City TV ads. In other words, if a billboard’s in a bad place, remove it or charge less for it.) Current state rules say billboard owners can clear trees and shrubs from 250 feet in front of signs. The industry wants to raise that to 375 feet. So far, the bill hasn’t passed the N.C. House.
Further, there’s a spat between the billboard lobby and NCDOT. Note that word “legally” above. Upon occasion, trees are illegally cut in front of billboards. The NCDOT releases an “illegal cutting inventory,” that lists the names of billlboard owners and businesses where the trees were cut. The billboard lobby wants the list to include only the mile markers, no names.
The names on that list, billboard industry lawyer Betty Waller of Cary wrote, may prejudice the public against the billboard owners, by implying they’re engaged in criminal conduct.
“Unfortunately, NCDOT has demonstrated an unyielding preference for vegetation, and has been unwilling to adopt a vegetation policy equally accommodating to commerce,” she wrote.
I don’t say this often, so pay attention: Hooray for the DOT, for its “unyielding preference for vegetation,” in this instance.
Read the full story here. Or turn to page 2B of today’s Observer.
And I’ll leave you with some verse by the inimitable Ogden Nash:
“I think that I shall never see
a billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall
I’ll never see a tree at all.”