No digital billboards in Durham

Not everyplace needs to look like Times Square. Let New York be New York and Durham be Durham.

This is it. The billboard industry has submitted their proposal requesting to change Durham’s current billboard ordinance. Most significantly, the proposal would allow up to 25% of existing billboard space to be converted to those annoying, distracting digital billboards.

Fairway Outdoor Advertising (now Fairway Media Magic, per a recent merger) has some gall to propose this change now. It’s obvious that they waited until after the election to bring this up, so as to avoid making billboards an election issue. But more importantly, the Durham Convention and Visitors’ Bureau recently released data from a poll conducted over the summer that demonstrates clearly how Durham residents feel about the prospect of digital billboards: 72% of those polled rejected it.

Read more about their proposal at Bull City Rising and the Herald Sun.

Visit the following website to refresh your memory as to why the billboard ban exists, to see examples of digital billboards in other communities, and to learn the concerns about their energy footprint, safety record, and the aesthetic impact digital billboards could have on Durham.

http://supportdurhambillboardban.com/

Please email links to this posting or to  http://supportdurhambillboardban.com/ to your neighborhood listserv, post it to Facebook, etc. Spread the word; stop the billboards.

The new Contact page on the site has been updated with the following suggestion…

WHAT YOU CAN DO

email linkIf you agree, for any reason, that new billboards should be kept out of Durham, please send a brief email to City Council, the County Commissioners, and the Durham Planning Commission in support of keeping the 20+ year-old ban on billboards in place.

You can send an email to all of them by clicking the envelope icon. If the link does not work for you, send emails to:
Council@DurhamNC.Gov,
commissioners@durhamcountync.gov,
and steve.medlin@durhamnc.gov.

Suggested text: I support Durham’s current ban on new billboards, and I am writing to ask you to support the current ban in upcoming votes.

Posted on November 8, 2009 
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