Debate intensifies over digital billboards

ST. PETERSBURG - There is a battle over digital billboards in St. Petersburg.

Clear Channel and the mayor of St. Petersburg have a deal: the company will demolish 100 of old-fashioned billboards in exchange for permission to erect 10 much more profitable digital billboards.

In October, Mayor Baker bragged about reducing urban blight.

"There's a series of safety standards that have been published on how bright they can be and different things like that, and they've agreed to abide by all those standards," Baker said.

But when the deal went to city council, council members said they wanted more information, and some citizens had questions.

"We had no knowledge that this was under discussion by anyone," said Barbara Heck, president of the Council of Neighborhood Associations.

The influential Council of Neighborhood Associations wants to wait for a federal study on the safety of the signs.

"It will look at what's happened with sideswipe and rear end and other types of accidents," said Travis Jarman, a billboard opponent.

Such a study is underway and should be done next year. The results might be a game-changer.
"It would be terrible to put something in place and then find down the road it's grandfathered in. But it's not conforming to the new guidelines that are out there," Heck said.

So the city council wants more information before approving Baker's deal.

"The deal that Mayor Baker brokered seems to be a good thing for the city," said St. Petersburg city council member Jeff Danner. "But now that there's additional information that there might be safety issues and things, we're going to try to get that from the workshop."

Earlier this week, Pinellas County Commissioners called for a moratorium on the digital sign issue after seeing photos display that appear to show the billboards outshining the traffic lights.

CUOntu engineers said there has been an increase in distraction-type accidents, and while they say it is not scientific evidence, it's a red flag that the billboards need more study.