S.A. board's vote to regulate digital billboards at odds with Clear Channel's plan

Clear Channel Outdoor's effort to change state and city codes to regulate digital billboards has hit a snag.
San Antonio's electrical supervisory board agreed Monday to recommend a city ordinance to regulate the light-emitting diode signs, or LEDs, but suggested capping permits to 10 for the first year and banning their use on older billboards that are exempt from current restrictions.


That could crimp Clear Channel's plan to put up 150 of the digital signs and, based on a trade-out requirement in the proposed city rules, take down 600 older billboards that are mostly in neighborhoods inside Loop 410.
That's because many of the most lucrative billboards are on sections of major roads and freeways designated as scenic corridors, which forbid new signs that aren't part of a business. So the existing signs in those prime areas are grandfathered and therefore exempt from the rules.
Size, height and spacing requirements also affect what's grandfathered, but city and Clear Channel officials say the rules are murky.
Attorney Frank Burney, representing Clear Channel, warned the electrical board that lawyers could end up haggling, billboard by billboard, on just what is grandfathered.
"I'll tell you, if you go with that, it'll be a retirement fund for lawyers," he said.
The board disagreed, and its recommendation now heads to the City Council. Staff officials said they don't know when the council will consider the proposed ordinance.
The billboard industry's draw to digital signs includes the ability to remotely switch messages half a dozen times a minute or thousands of times a day.
The electrical board recommended that images not move, be displayed at least 10 seconds each and be switched within a second. There would also be limits on brightness and a trade-out to take down three to 19 old billboards for each digital sign.
Burney and three Clear Channel officials were among 17 people who spoke at a public hearing before the board vote.
Ten speakers opposed the ordinance, saying the lighted signs would clutter the highways and distract drivers.
"A message that changes every eight seconds is designed to distract you," said Larry Clark of the River Road Neighborhood Association, one of several people speaking for neighborhood groups.
Marcie Ince of the San Antonio Conservation Society and Kathleen Trenchard of Scenic San Antonio asked the board to wait until a Federal Highway Administration study is finished to determine what risks digital signs could pose to drivers.
The study is scheduled to start next year and finish by the end of 2009, administration spokesman Doug Hecox said.
Meanwhile, the Texas Transportation Commission proposed similar rules last month for state roads within cities and will hold a hearing Nov. 28.
Last year, the Texas Department of Transportation began an effort to rework a federal-state agreement to allow the digital signs. The TxDOT attorney overseeing the initiative, Timothy Anderson, has since joined Clear Channel and spoke at Monday's hearing.

Source: Patrick Driscoll -Express-News