Controversy continues over county’s billboard ordinance

Thursday, Sept. 5, 2002 | 9:46 a.m.

Through two years of wrangling, billboard industry advocates and anti-billboard activists fought a war over changes to the sign laws in Clark County.

Over the objections of neighborhood-based activists, a new billboard ordinance was finally passed early this year. Activists warned then that the law would lead to a proliferation of billboards, especially along stretches of Interstate 215.

The county might be getting a taste of that feared proliferation now. The Clark County Commission's regular zoning agenda Wednesday had 18 applications for use permits to allow the signs.

"It looks like to me that what is happening is what I was concerned about," Commissioner Bruce Woodbury said.

Commissioner Erin Kenny, who supported efforts by the billboard industry to get a new law in place, does not agree. She said the host of applications considered Wednesday was a result of a year of inaction, when few new signs were approved by the commission.

"For one year we held this off," she said.

Not all the billboards up for consideration were passed, Kenny noted. Seven of the applications were held until Sept. 18.

But the holds came after Woodbury said he would not support any applications that had opposition from regional town advisory boards or the Clark County planning staff. All those that were held for later action had at least one strike against them.

At one point the staff, illustrating the feared "visual blight," showed a map of I-215 between Durango and Buffalo drives that showed the sites of several existing signs and at least a half-dozen proposed new signs.

Kenny and Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey said the map was misleading because it showed proposed new signs, represented by black dots, clustered together along the interstate.

"It's very misleading and it's not very informative," Kenny said. She asked for a new map that would indicate the separation distances between the billboards.

Woodbury, however, said the map "was pretty scary to me."

He said that number of billboards might be appropriate for an area such as the airport, but would interfere with the panorama of desert views that one can still see on I-215.

The commission did OK a number of new billboards that were unopposed by town boards or the county staff.