Press Releases and Newsletters
Many hail North Carolina annexation (News and Observer)
RALEIGH — Driving along the Interstate 85-40 corridor from Raleigh to Charlotte, a motorist will find – in the judgment of Wall Street – the greatest concentration of fiscally healthy cities in America.
The cities are fast-growing economic engines filled with new shopping centers and residential subdivisions, not the depressed urban areas of so much of the rest of the country.
A major reason for the rapid rise of Tar Heel cities, in the view of some urban experts, is North Carolina’s far-reaching annexation law.
“It’s largely the difference between being Charlotte and being Newark,” said David Rusk, an urban expert and the former mayor of Albuquerque, N.M.
But annexation – mainly involuntary – also has created a wave of anger from people living in unincorporated areas who were forced to become residents in cities and towns against their will and who afterward pay municipal taxes and often-expensive utility hook-up fees. And that has created a powerful political backlash.
That is why the state Senate earlier this month passed a one-year moratorium on forced annexations that city officials fear could lead to a permanent ban.
The moratorium bill is now pending in the state House, where it has considerable political support. Several local bills also are being considered that would either block ongoing annexations or roll back annexations that have already occurred in such municipalities as Lexington, Rocky Mount, Fayetteville and Goldsboro.
“Forced annexation is against every principle and idea of our Founding Fathers and our Constitution,” said Keith Bost of Davidson County, who has been involved in a four-year battle over annexation with the town of Lexington. “We have to pay taxes to people we were never allowed to vote for or against.”
North Carolina’s law
Few if any states in America have such a far-reaching annexation law as North Carolina – one that since 1959 has allowed towns and cities to incorporate adjacent unincorporated areas without the approval of residents.
The idea behind the law as it has evolved is to prevent North Carolina’s cities from making the mistakes of the North, where metropolitan areas are often marked by poverty-stricken cities surrounded by affluent suburbs. North Carolina’s laws have allowed its cities to bring in new subdivisions, office parks and shopping centers to remain economically vital by expanding their tax bases.
City officials argue that cities are the economic engines of the regions, and residents living in unincorporated areas are getting the benefits of living in the areas but not paying the taxes that city residents pay.
Several national studies have shown that cities with strong annexation laws are much more likely to be economically healthy than cities with fixed boundaries.
There is a striking difference between North Carolina and its neighbors to the north and south. Virginia and South Carolina have much more restrictive annexation laws.
Between 1960 and 2010, Raleigh saw its population more than triple. Neighboring state capitals, however, did not see similar growth. Columbia, S.C., had a slight increase, while Richmond shrank. Those cities are significantly smaller than Raleigh, and their residents are poorer, based on personal income data.
A drive down the I-85-40 corridor takes one past Raleigh, Cary, Durham, Chapel Hill, Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem and Charlotte, all of which have earned the highest AAA bond ratings from Wall Street – a rarity in this age of financially troubled cities.
“There is no greater concentration of municipal fiscal health in the United States, and possibly in the world, than that string of cities down I-85,” said Rusk, who has consulted in 120 metropolitan areas in the United States as well as in a number of foreign countries. (Rusk conducted a study in 2005 for the N.C. League of Municipalities, which supports annexation.) “That is overwhelmingly due to the ability to annex new growth under North Carolina’s annexation law. I’m not suggesting that you would turn yourself into Newark, Trenton and Camden if you end annexation. But you are headed down that path.”
Mostly voluntary
A vast majority of the annexations during the past 30 years were voluntary, in which property owners – usually real estate developers – petitioned a city to annex land they wanted to develop. Involuntary annexations, in which the city took in mainly contiguous land, made up only 9.6 percent of annexations during that time.
Involuntary annexations have not increased. There were 761 involuntary annexations in the 1990s in North Carolina, or 12.1 percent of all annexations, while there were 583 involuntary annexations during the first decade of this century or 7.4 percent, according to a survey by Russell Smith, a geography professor at Winston-Salem State University.
What has changed is that annexation opponents have become more organized, and the political climate has changed.
The flash points have been particularly acute in fast-growing areas around major cities, military bases and resort areas, where there has been an influx of newcomers from other states – many of them from the North and the Midwest, where involuntary annexation laws are unknown.
Cathy Heath of Cary was a political novice until the town of Cary wanted to annex her Medfield-Kingsbrooke Estate section northwest of the town. Originally from Ohio, she was surprised to learn that Cary could annex her without her consent.
Heath is a model for the power of citizen involvement. She successfully led the effort to oppose her area’s annexation. In 2003 she created a website, www .StopNC Annexation .com , that linked groups fighting annexation across North Carolina.
The power of the Internet helped transform disparate groups into a political movement. The anti-annexation effort has been helped by conservative advocacy organizations, such as Americans for Prosperity, which have taken up the cause.
Heath, 58, a landscape designer and homemaker, argues that the original intent of annexation – cities providing urban services such as water and sewer to rural areas – has been replaced by an effort by cities to make money.
The annexation policy, Heath argues, is divisive.
“The process automatically creates contention,” Heath said. “Most communities expect rational discussion where their voice matters. They drag them in kicking and screaming. They are never happy with it.”
Republicans’ positions
In the past, the annexation law has been praised by former Charlotte mayors such as Richard Vinroot and Pat McCrory, both Republicans, and has generally been liked by business leaders who see it as helping cities become major economic engines.
Most of the push for changing the annexation laws is coming from Republican lawmakers because it fits into their anti-tax, anti-government, pro-property-rights agenda.
The one-year moratorium bill that passed the Senate this month pleases neither side. The cities and towns are suspicious of it because a moratorium passed in Virginia in 1987 is still in effect.
The N.C. League of Municipalities, which represents cities and towns, has put forward a series of annexation reform proposals that include beefing up service requirements, increasing development standards, and allowing annexed residents to vote in municipal elections before the annexation becomes final. Ellis Hankins, the league’s executive director, said it will make involuntary annexations more difficult and rarer.
But the league’s proposals do not include the one change that opponents want: to give affected residents the right to vote on whether they wanted to be annexed.
“It would be allowing people to vote on whether they have to pay municipal property taxes,” said Hankins. “They would almost certainly vote against it.”
BY ROB CHRISTENSEN – Staff Writer
March 27, 2011
On the fast track (News & Record)
Sharing isn’t always easy, particularly when you’re talking about one railroad track and two trains. Slow-moving freight behemoths often get in the way of faster passenger trains.
Until that issue could be resolved amicably, the federal government was reluctant to hand over to the state the millions of dollars in stimulus money it wants to improve high-speed passenger service between the Triangle and Charlotte, with stops including Burlington, Greensboro and High Point.
And although Norfolk Southern drives a hard bargain, it finally reached an agreement with N.C. DOT that passes federal muster, allowing the state to secure $461 million in federal grants that will pay for passenger service upgrades.
The obvious solution was laying additional track on the current right of way. As a result, 28 miles of parallel track now will be installed between Greensboro and Charlotte, along with five miles of passing sidings on the Raleigh-Greensboro stretch.
The work also will involve building a dozen new highway bridges, closing private crossings, straightening curves and updating rights of way. Those projects, in turn, will create more than 4,800 much-needed jobs over the next two years.
According to state projections, the improvements eventually will allow Amtrak trains to reach speeds up to 90 mph. They also could cut travel time between Charlotte and Raleigh to less than three hours.
Stimulus critics say that’s too steep a price to pay for shaving less than a half-hour from a one-way trip. In fact, several states that have seen a conservative shift in leadership recently rejected stimulus funding for faster passenger service. Some Republicans in Raleigh are pushing for a similar response in North Carolina.
That would be shortsighted. Highway construction is time-consuming and expensive. Investing in long-term rail infrastructure will pay future dividends. In the short term, more convenient, safe service will help relieve at least some of the congestion in the already crowded I-85/I-40 corridor through the Piedmont.
Last fall, the state added a third train connecting the two cities. Ridership is strong. If all goes well, a fourth train will come on-line after the route improvements are completed.
On a more selfish level, if those federal stimulus dollars don’t come here, they will go somewhere else. The quest for rail stimulus money enjoyed bipartisan support from the state’s congressional delegation in 2009 and there’s no indication that has changed.
The push to improve passenger service extends beyond the state’s borders. Proposed upgrades elsewhere ought to reduce travel time to major cities nationwide. As gas prices continue to rise and air travel becomes increasingly stressful and time-consuming, trains become a more viable alternative.
But before that happens here, the state has to clear the way. The recent agreement with Norfolk Southern is a good start.
Editorial: On the fast track
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Panel takes dim view of electronic billboards (News& Observer)
The bill would allow outdoor advertisers to replace existing billboards with electronic ones – up to seven per mile – and expand the area around them that could be cleared of trees from 250 feet to 400 feet.
It would gut Durham’s existing billboard ban and nullify other local regulations that govern tree removal or sign location.
The bill would affect signs on interstate highways and federally assisted roads.
Supporters said by making billboards more prominent and easier to see, the measure would help restaurants, hotels and tourism in a state mired in a struggling economy.
“It’s a fair bill, it’s a jobs bill, it makes sense,” the sponsor, Republican Sen. Harry Brown of Onslow County, told the panel.
Critics say it makes billboard companies more powerful than local governments – a prospect that concerns some lawmakers.
“I don’t think we ought to take control away from local governments,” said Sen. Richard Stevens, R-Wake. “We do too much micromanaging up here the way it.”
COMPILED BY LYNN BONNER AND ROB CHRISTENSEN, JIM MORRILL – STAFF WRITERS
March 24, 2011
Senate bill to allow digital billboards remains in committee after Wednesday talks (Indy Week)
This billboard advertising the Dixie Gun & Knife from summer 2010 on the Durham Freeway sparked controversy over its placement.
Several state senators expressed concern Wednesday over a bill that would allow digital billboards across the state’s interstates and highways, regardless of local rules that might prohibit them. The bill’s sponsor, Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown of Jacksonville, said he just wanted feedback Wednesday, and no vote was taken. He is expected to revise the bill and bring it back to the Senate Transportation Committee.
Several senators said their major issue was the idea of taking away a community’s control of its own appearance from highways and interstates.
“I don’t think we ought to take the control away from our local governments,” said Sen. Richard Stevens, R-Wake, who noted his district is home to a large billboard company. “We do too much micromanaging up here as it is.”
The bill (SB183) would override local rules on signage, even those banning digital billboards, and would allow broader cutting of trees and other vegetation in front of the signs to increase visibility. The signs and tree-cutting would disregard local ordinances governing those very issues.
If passed, the bill wouldn’t allow any new billboards to be put up, but would allow old billboards on interstates and major highways to be replaced with signs that have changing images, whether through digital screens or rotating parts. As it’s currently written, the law would be effective Oct. 1.
Just last year, Durham City Council unanimously shot down a request from Fairway Outdoor Advertising to change its sign ordinances to allow for digital billboards, in part due to overwhelming opposition from residents who launched a campaign against the local issue. Several other municipalities, including each of the state’s largest cities, have spoken out against the bill, said Paul Meyer, chief legislative counsel for the N.C. League of Municipalities. Several other groups, including the North Carolina chapters of the Sierra Club and the American Planning Association, the N.C. Association of County Commissioners, the N.C. Metropolitan Mayors Coalition and Preservation North Carolina have also announced their opposition to the bill.
“We need to have the ability with each local government to decide what they want and what they will permit in their communities,” said Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham. “There are different local norms. I think enhancing the beauty of our communities and the uniqueness of our communities is something we should respect.”
McKissick noted that he had drafted an amendment that would delete any part of the bill that would eliminate the control of local governments, so that the state wouldn’t be stepping over the decisions of individual cities and towns. He was ready to file the amendment Wednesday, he said, but with Brown scheduled to bring revisions back to the committee, McKissick said he would hold off.
“Whenever a bill sponsor wants to work on it, we let him work on it,” he said.
The bill also proposes increasing fees for the signs and permits to cut trees, and some of that money would go back to planting more trees on the state’s highways, Brown said.
He called SB183 a “jobs bill” that will generate work for workers including welders, crane operators, truck drivers, and for RTP-based company Cree, which was founded in North Carolina and locally manufactures lighting components that are used in digital signs.
“What other industry is prohibited to invest in its infrastructure,” Brown said. He later continued: “We talk about technology helping every business and yet we want to limit this one particular business by not letting them use (digital) technology. I’m not sure that’s very fair. If somebody can help me work through the fairness issue, I think a local control issue is something we can talk about.”
Posted by Samiha Khanna on Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 5:34 PM
Digital billboard fight turns on jobs, trees, local control (Charlotte Observer)
Seeking compromise, Senate panel delays vote on signs bill.
In Charlotte, the bill would reduce the space between digital billboards from 2,000 feet to 1,500 feet.
Critics say it could add thousands of distracting digital billboards to N.C. roadways, clear-cut trees and strip Charlotte and other local governments of the power to regulate their own landscapes.
Supporters call it a jobs bill – and are confident it will pass.
The “Selective Vegetation Removal” bill got a cool reception Wednesday in the Senate Transportation Committee, which postponed a vote for at least a week, in part to see if both sides can reach a compromise.
“It’s a fair bill, it’s a jobs bill, it makes sense,” the sponsor, Republican Sen. Harry Brown of Onslow County, told the panel.
The bill, whose co-sponsors include GOP Sen. Bob Rucho of Matthews, would allow outdoor advertisers to replace existing billboards with electronic ones and expand the area around them that could be cleared of trees from 250 feet to 400.
It would gut Durham’s existing billboard ban and nullify other local regulations – like Charlotte’s tree ordinance – that govern tree removal or sign location.
The bill would affect signs on interstate highways and federally assisted roads such as U.S. 64 and 70 in Wake County and U.S. 74 and N.C. 49 in Mecklenburg and other counties.
Supporters said by making billboards more prominent and easier to see, the measure would help restaurants, hotels and tourism in a state mired in a struggling economy.
But critics include the N.C. League of Municipalities, the Association of County Commissioners, the Sierra Club, the Metro Mayors Coalition and the N.C. Planning Association.
Replacing ‘static’ billboards
Ben Hitchings of the planning association said the bill could allow advertisers to replace 5,000 current billboards with digital signs that change their message every few seconds.
There are only 2,400 digital billboards around the country, according to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.
The N.C. proposal would allow up to seven electronic billboards per mile.
In Charlotte, it would reduce from 2,000 to 1,500 feet the space between such billboards and from 1,000 feet to 100 feet the distance between digital signs and so-called “static” billboards.
It also would override a requirement for the city arborist to approve any tree-cutting in a public right-of-way that would make billboards more visible. Charlotte’s tree ordinance would no longer be enforced around billboards on the designated roadways
Critics have said the bill would make billboard companies more powerful than local governments. That prospect concerned some lawmakers.
“I don’t think we ought to take control away from local governments,” said Sen. Richard Stevens, R-Wake. “We do too much micro-managing up here.”
“Don’t mean to sound like a broken record,” added Democratic Sen. Malcolm Graham of Charlotte. “But the theme of today is local control.”
Among the critics of the bill: Edwin Peacock, a Republican who chairs the Charlotte City Council’s Environment Committee.
Sponsor calls criticism unfair
Tony Adams, a lobbyist for the N.C. Outdoor Advertising Association, sought to counter arguments about local control.
“We’re talking about roads funded by the federal government and fully controlled by the state,” he said.
He also said North Carolina has tougher billboard restrictions than other southern states and pointed to the proposed increase in permit fees for new billboards from $120 to $150. The additional money would be earmarked for tree planting and other beautification.
“There will be more trees in public rights-of-way than today,” Adams said.
Bob Hall of the watchdog group Democracy North Carolina has said executives with five major billboard companies gave N.C. politicians and political committees $150,000 in the past five years.
Some cities such as Denver have banned digital billboards, which they consider a driving distraction. Others, including St. Louis, have put a moratorium on them.
Brown, the main sponsor of the N.C. bill, said the criticism is unfair.
“We talk about technology helping every business, yet we want to limit this particular business by not letting them use technology,” he said. “What you’re telling them is we want your business to die a slow death and go away.”
By Jim Morrill
jmorrill@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Thursday, Mar. 24, 2011
GOP bill would halt fast rail (News & Observer)
RALEIGH — As the state Department of Transportation gears up to spend $461 million in federal grants for beefed-up train service from Raleigh to Charlotte, some Republican legislators say North Carolina should send the money back to Washington instead.
Rep. Ric Killian of Charlotte warned Tuesday that new passenger trains will hurt the state-owned N.C. Railroad and might saddle taxpayers unfairly with operation and maintenance costs.
“I just don’t think we should be creating another unsustainable system for the citizens of North Carolina to bear the financial burden on,” Killian said in an interview in his Legislative Building office.
A bill filed by Killian and six more House Republicans would have North Carolina follow the lead of GOP governors in Ohio, Wisconsin and Florida, who killed rail projects and spurned $3.6 billion in grants from the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama.
The North Carolina legislation would bar DOT from spending the new high-speed rail money or seeking more.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat, rejected the GOP proposal and said the federal funds would boost North Carolina’s economic development.
“This is money coming into the state that allows us to improve the rail system in a way we would not have been able to do on our own,” said Chrissy Pearson, Perdue’s communication director. “It will make the state more attractive to business. This money from the feds points directly toward putting people back to work.”
Ray LaHood, the U.S. transportation secretary, announced Tuesday that an agreement signed Monday between the state DOT and three railroads cleared the way for North Carolina to start spending money to add double tracks between Charlotte and Greensboro, to build passing siding tracks between Greensboro and Raleigh, to buy trains and to erect bridges.
“These grants will improve passenger rail service in North Carolina, while preserving the world-class freight rail system we have today,” LaHood said in a news release.
But Killian said the rail project will weaken freight service on the state-owned N.C. Railroad.
“The N.C. Railroad has a very limited capacity, and my preference would be for that capacity to be allotted toward freight, not passenger rail,” Killian said. He said the project would hurt the value of the N.C. Railroad, and referred a reporter to the railroad’s president, Scott Saylor, for details.
Creating jobs
Saylor is scheduled today to appear before a committee, co-chaired by Killian, that oversees transportation spending. The planned double track, Saylor said, will relieve a busy rail traffic bottleneck, making it easier for freight and passenger trains to pass slower trains between Greensboro and Charlotte. “The goal is to ensure that neither freight nor passenger trains run at the expense of the other,” Saylor said.
With the $461 million and an earlier payment of $59 million, DOT now has gotten its hands on all but $25 million of the total $545 million in high-speed grants pledged to North Carolina by the Obama administration in January 2010.
The stimulus grants pay 100 percent of project costs, with no requirement for matching capital funds from the state. DOT said the work will create about 4,800 jobs.
Killian did not provide details to explain his worry that North Carolina would face added expenses for maintenance and operations. He said DOT officials had mentioned a possible figure of $50 million, but he wasn’t sure what that covered.
Ted Vaden, a DOT deputy secretary, said Perdue’s proposed budget includes $4.5 million a year for maintenance of existing and planned rail service.
Fares collected from passengers on DOT-sponsored trains covered 79 percent of the state’s $23.8 million payment to Amtrak last year, and the state covered the rest, Vaden said. DOT planning documents include projections that passenger fares eventually will cover 100 percent of operating costs – if DOT wins full funding to complete its proposed Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor from Charlotte to Washington, D.C.
Worries about small towns
Killian said he also is concerned about safety hazards and economic damage in the small towns that won’t have stations for trains that are expected eventually to run as fast as 90 mph.
“If you’ve got a high-speed rail line that burns through there without stopping, it’s going to negatively affect those communities and split those communities,” Killian said.
He said he had not heard expressions of concern from any specific community.
Killian and Rep. Phillip Frye of Spruce Pine sponsored the bill to kill North Carolina’s high-speed rail program, with five other Republicans signed on as sponsors and co-sponsors.
A spokesman for the Republican House speaker, Rep. Thom Tillis of Charlotte, said Tillis has not taken a position on the proposal to kill the rail program.
The Republican Senate leader was noncommittal and said he wants to know more about whether DOT officials commit North Carolina to unusual, long-term financial obligations.
“I think we need that kind of information,” said Sen. Phil Berger of Eden, the Senate president pro tempore. “Beyond that, I’m not prepared to say we ought to turn the money down. I would think any improvements in the N.C. Railroad corridor would … benefit the people of North Carolina.”
March 23, 2011
BY BRUCE SICELOFF – STAFF WRITER
Don’t block broadband (News & Observer)
RALEIGH — While farm life has never been easy, at one time it was significantly harder. In the mid-1930s, over 97 percent of North Carolina farms had no electricity, many because private electric companies couldn’t make enough money from them to justify running the lines.
Aware of the transformational effect of electrification and recognizing the need to do something, visionary North Carolina leaders created rural electric cooperatives, beating passage of FDR’s Rural Electrification Act by one month. Through the state’s granting local communities the power to provide for their own needs where others would not, over 98 percent of farms had electricity by 1963, and our state has prospered.
The Internet is no less transformational than electricity. Through this world-changing technology, lives are being shared, distance learning taking place and innovative new businesses springing up. Sadly just as in the days before electrification, many North Carolina communities (particularly rural ones) are being left behind, stuck in the Internet slow lane.
Citing the economics, private Internet providers have been slow to invest in the high-speed infrastructure that would connect these rural communities. That has a lot to do with why North Carolina ranks a paltry 41st in the nation for broadband access, according to Census Bureau statistics.
Having been snubbed by the private providers, some communities like Wilson and Salisbury have taken the same approach as they did 66 years ago: opting to build their own state-of-the-art systems when the commercial providers refused.
Now the General Assembly, through a bill sponsored by Rep. Marilyn Avila, R-Raleigh, aims to throw substantial roadblocks in the way of communities seeking to serve themselves.
House Bill 129, the so-called the Level Playing Field bill, piles a regulatory burden on municipally owned networks that the private providers are not subject to.
Financing on municipal systems would be subject to unreasonable (and some say unconstitutional) restrictions, advertising would be strictly limited and limitations put on service areas, along with other drastic measures. In short, any municipal Internet enterprise would collapse under the weight of this government red tape, leaving our rural communities once again in the dark.
It’s important to note that the Internet would not exist without the investment from the federal government. Likewise, the private providers’ networks would not exist without the public rights-of-way. Anyone who claims the government shouldn’t be in the Internet business ignores the fact that there would be no Internet without the government.
Like the electric lines that were once strung by hand to all corners of our state, our cities should retain the right to bring Internet service to their communities – especially where the private providers will not.
BY MARK TURNER
March 23, 2011
Municipal broadband service is a matter of fairness (Winston Salem Journal)
Internet-service providers can’t have it both ways. They can’t delay bringing high-speed service to North Carolina communities but then turn around and lobby the legislature to deny local governments the authority to establish municipal service if their residents want it.
That’s exactly what cable and phone companies are doing, however. Ever since a 2005 N.C. Court of Appeals ruling upheld the right of towns and cities to offer broadband, telephone and cable companies have been crying about government unfairness.
The broadband battle is not being waged in the heavily populated portions of the state such as the Triad. Here, the for-profit companies moved in a long time ago. They can make a very nice profit here because the population density is adequate to provide a good return on the infrastructure needed for high-speed Internet service.
Over the past decade, however, North Carolina’s smaller municipalities, such as Wilson, Salisbury and Morganton, have built their own systems because their leaders recognized that broadband Internet is now an essential utility, just as electricity and natural gas are. The Internet-service providers did not step up to provide that essential service, so the municipalities did. In doing so, the cities followed a path they took nearly a century ago when the biggest electrical power companies did not provide service to these areas.
The House Finance Committee is looking at legislation that would sharply curtail local governments from offering new broadband service. The bill would, however, allow the eight local governments with existing systems to remain operating. The committee will hear from the public Wednesday morning, and it should quickly come to understand the simple situation here: If the cable companies want to provide service, then they should get into the towns that do not have it and seize that opportunity.
The private providers are trying to make a big-government argument here, one that includes clichés about unfairness and Big Brother. But that is not the case. In this situation, residents and businesses are tired of waiting for Internet-service providers to arrive, so they’ve exercised their democratic rights to seek an alternative solution through their local governments.
Had the private companies tried to make their argument 15 years ago, they might have deserved some sympathy. But not in 2011. The Internet and high-speed access to it have now been available in North Carolina homes for well more than a decade.
They ignored a market, and local governments stepped in to provide a critical service. The legislature should kill this bill.
By Journal Editorial
March 22, 201
Bill would allow wider use of digital billboards (News& Observer)
Environmentalists fight proposal to void local curbs on outdoor ads.
RALEIGH Supporters call it a jobs bill. Critics say it would destroy trees, gut ordinances in Charlotte and elsewhere and make North Carolina “the flashing billboard state.”
A measure, expected to be heard today by a House committee, would allow outdoor advertisers to replace existing billboards with digital ones and expand the area that could be cleared of trees and vegetation.
“It makes billboard companies more powerful than local governments,” said Molly Diggins, state director of the Sierra Club.
The bill that has sparked protests in the Triangle and other areas would affect interstate highways and federally assisted roads such as U.S. 64 and 70 in Wake County and U.S. 74, N.C. 49 and 521 in Mecklenburg.
It would allow advertisers to convert billboards to digital ones that change their message every eight seconds and nearly double the space around them that could be cleared for a better view of the message. It would allow up to seven electronic billboards per mile.
The sponsor, Republican Sen. Harry Brown of Onslow County, said it would restore fairness to an industry often penalized by local ordinances.
And lobbyist Tony Adams of the N.C. Outdoor Advertising Association said it would create jobs by helping businesses get their message out.
“With the economy in such bad shape right now not only in North Carolina but across the country, advertisers are looking to get words out about their products,” he said. “It’s a puzzle why a local government trying to entice people to come in for jobs (would) hamstrung an industry. … This fosters jobs.”
Critics say the measure would trump local ordinances.
“It’s trying to circumvent what local officials have already vetted, discussed and voted unanimously to oppose,” said John Schelp, a neighborhood leader in Durham, which last year upheld its ban on digital billboards. “The billboard industry (is) trying to change the rules another way.”
The Raleigh City Council authorized a resolution last week opposing the bill.
“It’s just bad legislation,” said City Attorney Tom McCormick. “You don’t need to have these things all over the place. They’re traffic hazards that distract motorists. And they’re unattractive to your city.”
Republican Edwin Peacock of the Charlotte City Council said, “The draft of this bill pits billboards versus trees.
“When citizens have a choice,” he added, “they will always pick trees.”
In addition to nullifying any bans on digital billboards, the bill would overturn other restrictions. In Charlotte, for example, it would:
Expand the roadways where digital billboards are allowed.
Reduce from 2,000 to 1,500 feet the space between electronic billboards and from 1,000 feet to 100 feet the distance between digital signs and so-called “static” billboards.
Override a regulation that requires the city arborist to approve any tree-cutting in a public right-of-way that would make billboards more visible. The city’s tree ordinance would no longer be enforced around billboards on the designated roadways.
“It would dramatically increase cutting,” said Ben Hitchings, past legislative chair of the N.C. chapter of the American Planning Association. “Communities ought to be able to make their own decisions about how they look … This bill would override those kind of choices.”
Digital signs generate more revenue for outdoor advertisers because they accommodate multiple advertisers with changing messages.
The outdoor advertising association is not a major campaign contributor. But Bob Hall, director of the watchdog group Democracy North Carolina, said executives with five major billboard companies have given over $150,000 to North Carolina politicians and political committees in the past five years.
Among the bill’s opponents is the N.C. League of Municipalities. Kelli Kukura, the league’s director of government affairs, said the group is among those trying to work with the industry on a compromise.
“We appreciate the billboard industry’s willingness to work out something much more reasonable than they’ve proposed,” she said. “Our citizens are very upset and don’t want North Carolina to become the flashing billboard state.” Craig Jarvis and Matt Garfield of the (Raleigh) News & Observer contributed.
By Jim Morrill
jmorrill@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Wednesday, Mar. 23, 2011
Winston-Salem Residents Fight State Billboard Proposal (Fox 8 News)
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March 22, 2011
