Palms may take a bow for billboard views (FL Legislature!)

[seafan]

It's official. Our legislature is made up of lunatics.


Palms may take a bow for billboard views

Lawmakers are debating a bill that would prohibit trees from getting in the way of billboards.

BY EVAN S. BENN

April 19, 2006



JOHN VANBEEKUM/MIAMI HERALD STAFF
IN THE WAY? These royal palms along South Dixie Highway near Southwest 37th Avenue would be chopped down under a proposed state law prohibiting governments from blocking the view of billboards with a tree.

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A bill that passed the state House and comes before the Senate today would prohibit local governments from blocking the view of a billboard with a tree.
Planting a tree within a football-field-size zone between outdoor signs and neighboring highways could cost local governments -- and by extension, their taxpayers -- thousands of dollars in fines.

''It's basically allowing the billboard industry to regulate the government,'' Miami-Dade County Commissioner Katy Sorenson said. ``They want to make county and city governments responsible for accommodating the visual pollution of billboard advertising.''
The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Melbourne Republican Sen. Mike Haridopolos,...

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If a billboard owner believes an ad's view zone has been disrupted by a beautification project, the owner must notify the local government and ask officials to fix the obstruction. The government has 90 days to comply; if not, the billboard owner can go to court and force the government to pay either the cost of the billboard or the lost revenue from the blocked view. A second part of the bill would allow billboard owners to increase the height of an ad if a highway sound wall or noise barrier blocks its view zone.

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''It's almost like we'd be giving away public property for free,'' McCarty said. ``It's not even the state's property to give away. It's local property.''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/14373678.htm