City should get a grip on digital billboards

It's nightfall, and you're driving north on the Monterey Bridge when a sign to the northwest grabs your attention like a great beacon in the sky.It's a new electronic billboard installed by Lamar Outdoor Advertising. New messages flash at you every six seconds.The next day, you're driving north on Milton Avenue, and as you approach the Holiday Drive intersection, a flash of green off to the right catches your eye. It's another such digital billboard, one of six installed by Lamar.Technology has leaped ahead of city ordinances.Janesville resident Elizabeth Gall calls them "TV sets in the sky.""Digital display only serves to intensify the eyesore created by these massive outdoor advertising signs," Gall wrote in a letter to the Gazette.As a citizen member of the zoning board of appeals, she understands the workings of city government better than a casual observer."In the past few years, members of the community, city staff and the city council have worked diligently to modify ordinances in order to prohibit blight and create an urban landscape that is consistent with a community that calls itself the 'City of Parks,'" Gall wrote. "Unfortunately, technology has gotten ahead of the sign code."Lamar reviewed ordinances before deciding where to place the billboards. However, in a Gazette story Wednesday, Brad Yarmark, vice president and general manager for Lamar in Janesville, acknowledged the company didn't consult the city before installations.Lamar is offering a valuable city service with the billboards. If a child abduction prompts an Amber Alert, or police need help finding a crime suspect, Lamar could post a sketch or photo on the billboards within minutes of getting it from police.The billboards also promote nonprofit agencies, such as the Rock County Humane Society."Our very limited budget could not hope to afford the advertising offered to us by Lamar," Christina Konetski, shelter executive director, wrote to the Gazette.The billboards don't bother some people. One resident even suggested they're "cool."In yet another letter to the Gazette, Barb M. Smith wrote that they distract drivers no more than talking on cell phones or putting on makeup. Though the billboard lights dim at dusk, they provide free lighting that might make our city safer, she reasoned.Yarmark says Lamar followed existing code, which allows a billboard message to change every six seconds. Of course, that code was written in the era of mechanical billboards with rotating messages."We're definitely concerned about them," Brad Cantrell, community development director, told the Gazette.The city should be. If placed in residential neighborhoods, such signs could bother people trying to get a good night's sleep. If flashing green, yellow or red distracts drivers as they approach traffic signals, the messages could contribute to accidents. Drivers don't need any more distractions as they negotiate the racetrack that is Milton Avenue.Rather than signs, electronic billboards could be deemed "digital message senders" that might face restrictions on locations and brightness.The six billboards already in place probably should be left alone. But city officials must move quickly to catch up with this technology and avoid problems down the road.

Source: Gazette Extra