Welcome to the first edition of Scenic America's new e-newsletter, Scenic Overlook. This monthly publication will highlight Scenic America's activities, pressing scenic issues around the country, the work of our state affiliates, news items of note, opportunities for national and state-level advocacy on key scenic topics, and, of course, the occasional fundraising pitch.

Overlook hopes to visually capture what is happening across America -- both SCRAPBOOK1205 good and bad -- in our Scenic Scrapbook, which will be a part of every newsletter. I've kicked this feature off with an example from my own travels. Our cities are being swallowed alive by enormous signs often so big that holes have to be cut into them to allow light into the buildings they cover. This is New York, but it could be anywhere.

Almost every community in the nation is facing a scenic challenge of one kind or another: rampant billboard blight, disappearing open space, landscape intrusions like poorly sited cell towers and overhead power lines, unnecessarily homely sound walls along highways, and the never-ending affliction of unremittingly ugly strip development. This newsletter will keep an eye on these issues as we continue to build a movement of citizens committed to our core principle that change is inevitable, but ugliness is not!
One of the most important goals of this e-newsletter is to reach out to new audiences, so you are urged to forward these missives to friends, family, acquaintances, curious strangers, issue partners, activists, or concerned citizens - anyone who cares, or should care, about the future of America's scenic heritage and resources. Urge them to sign up for the newsletter themselves, and, of course, you should always direct those people to our new and improved website at www.scenic.org for the wealth of resources that we offer there (and to the all-important Donate page, whenever possible).

The good thing about electronic communication is that it is very flexible and can accommodate rapidly changing information and urgent news, so if you have material you would like to see included in the next edition (or a special edition), don't hesitate to write to me at fry@scenic.org.

Scenically yours,
Kevin Fry

Welcome to Scenic Overlook and let's get started...

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Carpetbaggers Chipping Away at Billboard Regulations

Across the country, cities and counties are facing a wave of lawsuits filed by industry-supported lawyers set on overturning sign ordinances designed to protect scenic resources and community values. More than 100 cities and counties have been targeted in federal or state courts. So far almost three dozen communities have had their entire sign code struck down, meaning that the city is left with no protection against billboards going up in residential and historic neighborhoods, along scenic roads, or near schools. But attempting to overturn ordinances is only one component of the billboard industry's courtroom strategy.

Cases don't have to reach a final conclusion in court for the billboard industry to undermine a community's aesthetic protections. Working out settlements with local governments has also been an effective tool for billboard attorneys seeking to open up previously off-limits areas for signs. In Snellville, Ga., two billboard companies sued the city in federal court to put up 13 billboards where they were not otherwise allowed. The companies were able to persuade a federal district judge to strike down Snellville's entire sign ordinance. Rather than pursue an appeal, the city settled and allowed eight billboards to be erected to avoid the prospect of as many as 13 new billboards going up. (Tragically, three workers were killed when one of those enormous 35,000-pound billboards collapsed at a shopping center.)
Snellville isn’t alone. The small town of Belleair Bluffs, Fla., also knows what’s at stake. This is how the Belleair Bee described the threat in a recent article:

[City Attorney Thomas] Trask said that current law is unconstitutional and could leave the city prey to an unscrupulous company that is successfully using flawed city ordinances to force unwanted billboards on unsuspecting communities.

Trask said that the company buys small tracts of land in small towns then takes out billboard applications. When the applications are rejected, a lawsuit is filed. If the community’s sign ordinance is declared illegal, the applications must be approved. The company then sells the applications to billboard companies.

The billboard companies don’t even have to win in court in order to profit from their suits. Suits are targeted at small communities that are often poorly equipped to handle the expensive legal costs necessary to protect their quality of life. They bank on the high cost of a legal battle to tilt things in their favor. For instance, after Pompano Beach, Fla., won its case in federal court, it still allowed three giant billboards to be erected in order to avoid the costly and time-consuming appeals process.

But even when a jurisdiction revises its ordinances, it is not always successful in avoiding a battle with the billboard industry – even when the billboard industry is making the rules. In Georgia, a small city just east of Atlanta called Covington was sued and a settlement was agreed upon that included the billboard company's lawyer helping to rewrite the city’s sign ordinance. Then the same lawyer, this time representing a different client, sued the city and sought to strike down the revised sign ordinance he had just helped draft so that even more billboards could be erected.

The message is clear: no community is safe.

Scenic America is the only national advocacy organization devoted to fighting blight and protecting the visual quality of our cities and towns. In support of the efforts of cities, towns, and counties fighting the billboard industry’s efforts to use the courts to undermine aesthetic regulation, we have submitted nearly a dozen amicus briefs to state and federal appellate courts. But the magnitude of the problem has reached unprecedented levels. To counter this growing threat, Scenic America must raise money to create a new technical staff position to provide direct support to local governments and concerned citizens. Without additional help, all American communities are vulnerable, regardless of what they want for themselves. We need your support so that we can help defend the right of communities to control their quality of life and protect their scenic resources.

Please help us build capacity to fight this battle. Donate now, so that America’s communities don’t pay the price later.

TAKE ACTION:

Scenic America is the only national advocacy organization devoted to fighting blight and protecting the visual quality of our cities and towns. To counter this unprecedented threat to community character, we must raise money to create a new technical staff position to provide direct support to local governments and concerned citizens. Please help us build capacity to fight this battle. Donate now, so that America's communities don't pay the price later.

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Billboards to Fly Over Waikiki?

Hawaii is one of only four states to ban billboards in their entirety, but Hawaiians and tourists drawn by the state's scenic beauty may soon be subjected to intrusive airborne advertisements in the form of flying billboards. The sign control ordinance of the City and County of Honolulu is being challenged in the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. The California-based anti-abortion group is seeking the right to tow large signs behind airplanes, targeting the captive audience of beachgoers. Working closely with Hawaii's Outdoor Circle, one of the nation's oldest scenic conservation organizations, Scenic America has filed an amicus brief in support of Honolulu's sign ordinance and opposing efforts to devalue the aesthetic beauty of the Hawaiian Islands.

Aerial signs (flying billboards) are a subspecies of signage that can be perceived as an 'esthetic harm.' While other forms of advertising are ordinarily seen as a matter of choice, aerial signage, like fixed billboards, are different. They are intrusive by their very nature. In protecting the public welfare, local governments should be able to consider that certain sign types add visual clutter and detract from a community's legitimate aesthetic interests.

The distracting nature of these sign types (e.g., billboards, revolving signs, animated signs, and aerial signs) should not set them apart for heightened constitutional protection just because their distracting nature makes them harder to ignore and thereby more effective in garnering attention.
Effective advertising alternatives exist to justify prohibitions on certain sign subspecies where a community has chosen to preserve, protect or even restore scenic beauty through viewpoint-neutral sign regulations.

Learn More:

Scenic America's amicus brief
City Ban On Aerial Banners Challenged, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Nov. 22, 2005

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National Scenic Byways Program Grows by 45

The National Scenic Byways Program added 45 new roads to the collection in 2005, bringing the total to 126 in 44 states. Scenic America has been an active partner and supporter of America's Byways since the program's brandywine-byway inception in 1991. Byway designation is a highly competitive process and requires that applicants possess intrinsic qualities that are scenic, historic, cultural, natural, recreational, or archeological. This year Scenic America worked with the Byways Resource Center to conduct an experimental scenic conservation workshop at the Northwest Passage Scenic Byway in Idaho, based on the book Conserving Our Treasured Places: Managing Visual Quality on Scenic Byways, co-developed by Scenic America and the Center.

To find out more about National Scenic Byways and All-American Roads, visit www.byways.org.

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Billboards Drive Men to Distraction

Maybe we should have called this story "Unsafe at Any Speed," but Reuters recently reported on new findings in the UK that billboards (along with other roadside visuals, such as Christmas decorations) are a distraction to drivers. Apparently, this is especially true of male drivers. Nearly 25 percent of men reportedly veered out of their driving lanes when confronted with roadside advertisements containing scantily clad women. The study, conducted by an insurance agency, equated a five-second distraction at 60 mph to driving at least the length of a soccer field without fully concentrating. We don't call it visual pollution for nothing.

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