The two resolution items that pertain to an ill-considered attempt to legalize giant billboards, also known as mural ads, on the sides of buildings fronting the expressways are back on the agenda for:
Thursday, September 12, 2013
RE.17 and RE.18
What Can You Do?
It's easy to use Scenic Miami Inc.'s Take Action Alert to send email to your elected officials and tell them to Vote No by clicking on:
Take Action Here
Agenda and City Documents
The city maintains the online version of the agenda and relevant documents for this Thursday's meeting, so if you would like to see the most current version of the meeting agenda along with all of the documents relevant to RE. 17 and RE.18 please visit their website
Background:
From July 11 Analysis of Resolutions by Bill Brinton, nationally renowned sign attorney. Thank you to Bill for educating all of us on this extremely important matter.
What is this About?
The City, and not FDOT, will become responsible for effective control of billboards on building walls (known as mural billboards), based upon customary size, spacing and lighting as of January 27, 1972. The City maintains that billboards were customary along the expressways (not true) for sizes up to 10,000 square feet (not true).
It turns out that as of January 27, 1972, billboards facing the expressways had already been banned for more than eight years. It also turns out that there was a strict size limitation for non-expressway billboards that limited their size to three and one-half (3 1/2) square feet for each linear foot of wall fronting a street.
FDOT and FHWA have been asked to take another look at the representations made by the City to government officials.
In an effort to gain the state's approval, the City has offered to share one-half of the gross revenue from the giant billboards with the FDOT for road projects. The terms of this arrangement came before the City for the first time on July 11 when it was deferred until July 25.
Deferring RE.7 (now RE.17) and RE 8 (now RE.18), legislation that is drafted to evade the requirements of the federal Highway Beautification Act, was the right thing to do and we thank Miami officials for doing so the first (several) times.
Tell them what you think any way you can! One easy way to do this is to go to Scenic Miami-Dade's site by clicking on: Take Action Here
5 comments:
City of Miami elected officials have been pandering to the outdoor advertising industry for decades. Over the past few years Commissioners approved illegal LED billboards. Now Commissioners want to further evade the Federal Highway Beautification Act. Shameful.
Tourists are complaining about the tremendous number of billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising. What make municipal officials and politicians promote visual pollution. What makes officials violate Federal laws?
Nobody can cross Miami-Dade County without being harassed and distracted by huge ugly billboards. It seems like every day the City of Miami approves another ugly billboard.
City politicians are motivated by campaign contributions from the outdoor advertising industry. The lobbyists point to permit fees from the billboards stuck on buildings. Why not allow heroin dealers to operate "as long as they pay the City"? Why not let real estate developers "build high rises in single family residential neighborhoods"? Surely the real estate developers can be counted on to pony up campaign contributions? LED billboards are illegal. There is no ethical justification for violating the 1965 Highway Beautification Act.
The two items were deferred. They are scheduled to be heard October 10th, 2013.
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