We commend the DeFuniak Springs City Council for recently enacting an ordinance restricting the placement of future billboards and prohibiting the removal of trees from a public right-of-way merely to make an off-premises sign more visible from that public right-of-way without proper replacement. This was done in an effort to protect residential homes, the historic district and the Hwy 90 and 331 commercial corridors from the negative impacts of billboards. This is an important step toward enhancing the beauty of the City of DeFuniak Springs and supporting healthy growth in the future.

Billboards do more than damage the scenic qualities of our communities. They distract drivers, bring down property values, and bombard us with marketing messages that we can’t avoid. But the $8 billion billboard industry is known for working behind the scenes, swaying decisionmakers to make policies that put more signs on our streets. We want to minimize the detrimental impacts of billboards in Walton County, so we support removing every existing billboard possible and prohibiting new billboards from littering our roadways and negatively impacting our communities. To learn more about billboards visit https://www.scenic.org/why-scenic-conservation/billboards-and-sign-control/.