Melissa Ross
Like the kudzu that keeps cropping up in backyards across the South, the longstanding bugaboo of billboards in the city of Jacksonville is the issue that just won’t die.
The latest iteration: This week Jacksonville City Council is debating whether billboards should be allowed on the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena.
A letter sent from the local nonprofit Scenic Jacksonville states that “Jacksonville citizens have continually shown their distaste for inappropriate billboards. To have billboards marring the Arena, which honors our Veterans, is extremely offensive, especially when the advertiser is a divorce-lawyer firm based in Orlando, who wrote a bullying, provocative and misleading Letter to the Editor.”
Anti-billboard activists have a long history in Duval County. The most recent flareup in the longstanding battle between billboard foes and companies like Clear Channel occurred in December 2014 when a settlement agreement allowed new digital billboards to stand, but kept more areas of town as billboard-free zones, ending a legal skirmish between Scenic Jacksonville and outdoor advertising companies.
The Jax billboard battles began way back in 1987, during an election when Duval voters came out for tougher regulations. Those results remain in the City Charter, but have been frequently challenged. Scenic Jacksonville was formed from the citizen group that pushed the 1987 vote.
Meanwhile, down in South Florida, a proposed 633-foot LED billboard tower is causing controversy of its own.
The Miami Innovation Tower would feature signs 30,000 square feet wide with high-tech displays featuring brightly lit ads, PSAs and art.
Developer Michael Simkins has said, “The iconic tower will elevate the city’s brand on a global level, enhance the city skyline, and complement and enhance the surrounding community.”
Scenic Miami is on record calling the proposed tower “the most visually ugly structure in the state of Florida.”
Which echoes the pleas from Scenic Jax: “Please go and notice how attractive and well-designed the Sports Complex is. How can we allow billboards to blight this iconic area? Banners describing Arena events are one thing, but permanent off-site advertising billboards covering the sides of the Arena goes against our community’s standards and best interest. It is hard to be a first class city when we abandon good taste and good sense.
“Allowing billboards on the Arena is a dramatic change in policy and flies against existing restrictions on off-premise advertising.”
The letter concludes by imploring recipients to contact their council representatives via email.
