According to this article on Burnsville Patch, Burnsville’s City Council is looking for the public to listen to and consider the discussion brought forth by ClearChannel in adding an LED-style billboard, the same ones which have been banned in other Minnesota cities and which some say blight the National Wildlife Refuge in Eagan, to Burnsville’s landscape.
From the article:
Since the mid-1980s, Burnsville has gradually pruned billboards from the city’s landscape as per city ordinance, with the ultimate goal of eliminating them entirely. Kealey argued that the code was perhaps outdated.
“Billboards are nothing like what they used to be. They used to be not-a-very-nice looking thing,” Kealey said. “Today they’re a completely different: They’re appealing and they have far better graphics, with LED as opposed to fixed, painted graphics. I think it’s time that we take another look at it because the decisions made 10 or 15 years ago need to be re-evaluated.”
[...]
Nevertheless, Sherry said she wanted to give the public ample opportunity to weigh in before making a decision.
“The public should know that what we’re talking about is like a giant TV screen,” Sherry said. “And while we’ve all been lobbied very heavily by Clear Channel, I would like to hear from the public about what they want. That has to come into the discussion.”
While the billboards are certainly different than they used to be, one could argue that they are far more annoying now than ever before. With an ever changing screen and more ads displayed, these new televisions on a stick can be a distraction to drivers and are visible from a great distance away causing similar disruptions to the natural landscape like the universally disliked Holiday Gas Station store signs which have cropped up all over town with very little regulation.
But this is a fight which can be won. As noted before, while ClearChannel is lobbying for variances to allow these signs to be placed in your backyard, there are other groups lobbying to keep them out. Clearly the Burnsville City Council at least wants to hear your concerns about the issue even if pro-business Kealey is unlikely to listen because it benefits his boss (whose family-owned hotel in town has one of the most annoying signs along 35W to date).
What do you think about allowing more billboards within Burnsville’s city limits? As a driver on 35W do you want to have Burnsville add yet another one of these along your commute? Do you think the “televisions on a stick” are better than traditional billboards? Do you think that the Burnsville City Council will actually listen to your concerns or will they side with ClearChannel instead? Whatever you have to say about this one go ahead and comment on as I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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May 18th, 2012 at 8:38 am
Distraction my ass. Today’s driver is distracted by a million other things (doing makeup, talking/texting on phone, eating/drinking, etc.) while driving, billboards are an after-thought.
May 18th, 2012 at 8:45 am
Thinking out loud……
First, IF the City allows expansion of LED-style billboards: If the City was really smart (which they aren’t), they would make approval contingent upon Clear Channel making a certain percentage of the advertising available to Burnsville-based *independent* businesses or City services for a free or drastically reduced rate. Example: Every 4th thing that shows up on the billboard as it changes. It would be a win-win for Clear Channel and things like the BPAC, public service communications (“Burnsville Snow Emergency Tonight – Move Your Car”), places like Ernies/Jojo’s that wouldn’t afford billboard participation, etc.
On a more general note — what is the upside here (aside from my idea above)? I’m seeing Clear Channel making a bunch of money (which I don’t necessarily object to). But the citizens don’t benefit, Burnsville businesses benefit very little (if at all), and the City doesn’t benefit.
St. Paul used to have a sensible ordinance when I lived there and I think it’s still in practice. If an existing billboard is damaged or needs replacement, they can do so with a new billboard of similar size. No new billboards allowed, nor can they install much larger billboards.
Along those lines, I think most municipalities have set guidelines for LED billboards and how often they change (with the exception of stupid Minneapolis which has a billboard running a constantly changing KSTP news scroll (!) along the I94/35W merge). Talk about a driving hazard.
My opinion:
New billboards: No.
Granting ability to swap out billboards with LED-style of the same size under certain defined parameters of brightness and how often they change: Yes, but only with my idea above.
May 18th, 2012 at 8:54 am
MNDOT standards allow for changeable message signs (i.e. the LED billboards) to rotate images every 8 seconds. When Burnsville agreed to allow LED signs (like at Walgreen’s) in Burnsville to actually rotate images more than once every 24 hours last year, they set the rotation limit to 30 seconds. They are supposed to re-examine that ordinance later this summer after the one-year trial with the thought that they could drop that down to closer to MNDOT’s standard.
May 18th, 2012 at 9:00 am
Electronic billboards don’t bother me anymore than regular billboards. Additionally, I never considered moving to a city and then took a step back and said, “Nope, they have too many billboards, I’ll be quality of life there sucks!” We’re talking about a major freeway artery for these billboards, not the side of Burnsville Parkway. I can see trying to keep them out of residential areas (between Burnsville Parkway and McAndrews along 35W) but other than that, I don’t see any reason to restrict the billboards that are allowed. If they’re a freeway hazard, let’s let the state decide that with studies to back it up. I don’t see how they’re much different than any other electronic sign; they’re just bigger. And they certainly aren’t nearly as hideous as the Holiday neon!
May 18th, 2012 at 9:03 am
Joey,
It’s really surprising when you go to another state and see billboards everywhere. You become accustomed to the fact that they don’t have them here all that much and then when you travel it’s all you notice–in fact it’s annoying, distracting and disgusting IMO.
May 18th, 2012 at 9:08 am
MSPD, I’m not sure why the benefit to Burnsville residents and businesses is relevant. I assume there’s a benefit to whoever owns the land on which the billboard is placed. Should the benefit something brings to everyone who lives there dictate whether we permit something to exist? I don’t think so. That just isn’t a litmus test I’m comfortable with. Unless there’s actually express harm, I see no reason to prohibit this.
Additionally, who decides how many billboards are too many? I can see limiting the spacing between them or banning them from residential areas, for example. But completely ending the addition of new billboards doesn’t make sense to me.
For example: Burnsville at one time wanted to limit the number of liquor stores, so they required that there be minimum spacing between stores (1 mile, I believe). Of course, that ordinance was done away with, but it was a much more sensible way of handling it than simply capping the number at 7. The principle at play was the density of the stores, not the actual number. I’m still not totally comfortable with ordinances related to density, but I can see their benefit and it makes a lot more sense to me than simply capping the number.
May 18th, 2012 at 9:10 am
I don’t disagree that they’re annoying. I just wonder to what extent my annoyance should dictate what someone else can erect on their property?
May 18th, 2012 at 9:25 am
There is an electronic billboard by my parents house in Maplewood. I find it no more distracting than the ski jump it is adjacent to.
May 18th, 2012 at 9:36 am
I believe they should be permitted to do this only if every third ad switch has a word in it starting with Q, X, or Z, as these are some of the most difficult to find when I am driving on longer trips and palying the billboard game (start with A. When you find a word beginning with A, move on to B, etc.)
May 18th, 2012 at 9:46 am
Sui generis, that brings back some awesome memories!
Q – the hardest to find. Billboards for Dairy Queen (or actual Dairy Queens if driving through small town America) are the best.
X – easy to find on freeways. Just look for an “exit.” On 2-lane highways (or barren stretches of freeway in Nevada), you’re screwed.
Z – also easy to find on freeways. Just look for the crossover lanes in the middle of a divided highway, used by police cars, plow trucks, and other “authorized vehicles only.” Also located on 2-lane highways with a “No Passing Zone.”
May 18th, 2012 at 10:56 am
I guess I didn’t fully flesh out my thoughts before typing out the comment. But….the “thinking out loud” intro.
Where I was going is to question what motivation the City Council has to consider changing the ordinance at this time.
Allowing a national company to alter the City’s landscape should be weighed against what benefit it provides/detriment it causes to the City, its citizens, and its general economic climate (among other things like environmental impact, etc).
I see very little benefit to ADDING billboards in the City, especially on public rights of way (if I’m understanding these locations, they would be on public rights of way….not some citizen that wants to make money by allowing them to install them on their private property along 35W).
Allowing Clear Channel to fix or replace existing billboards, even if they replace them with LED-style (under certain safety/pollution standards) seems sensible.
Allowing them to add new billboards, to me, is a question that needs to include consideration of quality of life, economic benefit, visual detriment, public safety, etc. My impression is that there is very little upside to anyone besides Clear Channel to ADDING NEW billboards to the City….and therefore: Why?
May 18th, 2012 at 3:05 pm
Boo! No to billboards, all round.
May 18th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
One of the few (ok, ONLY) pleasures of driving 35 W North in Burnsville is coming over the rise at about Burnsville Parkway in the spring and just seeing a huge expanse of trees in the distance with just a ribbon of the roadway running through, and in the fall, even better. Lighted billboards will be nothing but a blight. The LiveInn suites sign is bad enough.
Also, too distracting. If advertisers say they aren’t, then the e billboard isn’t doing its job, in which case, what us the point if putting them up then? Their whole purpose is to distract.
Blech.
May 18th, 2012 at 11:32 pm
I personally think the billboards are distracting and a form of visual pollution. My vote is that they should be limited to the ones that already exist and removed whenever possible. Maybe find a way to remove two or three existing billboards for every one of the new LED signs that goes up.
We have two choices here people….. limit those buggers now or accept a Blade Runner future. LED billboards=replicants!!
May 19th, 2012 at 3:48 pm
Depends. Do I get a flying car out of the deal?
May 21st, 2012 at 8:00 am
An electronic billboard? If it gets put up on the West side of 35W @ Cliff, it will make a wonderful bookend to the Walmart sign . . . No billboard please.
May 21st, 2012 at 8:25 am
Tim,
When you have an auto-car, the ads can be posted to the television you are watching in your car on the way to work. Billboards will be a thing of the past in the auto-car world of the future.
May 21st, 2012 at 8:02 pm
I saw ads on LCD screens in taxis as far back as 2000, and ads inside subways and buses and on station platforms are becoming increasingly common. They had them in the subways in Tokyo when I was there four years ago and they are starting to show up in the US as well. I think it’s only a matter of time before we see them around here.
May 22nd, 2012 at 11:42 am
All I know is Don Draper is having a hard time dealing with the Beatles Rubber Soul album, so I am not sure what he would think about LED billboards, but he is probably dead by now.
No EBB’s in Bville.
August 16th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
From: http://sunthisweek.com/2012/08/16/led-billboards-likely-in-burnsville/
August 16th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
This was the classic part of the article:
What’s wrong with this picture?
For full disclosure, Matt Weiland (Clear Channel) is a good friend of mine. That said, it has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on my opinion of things. Just wanted to be on the “up and up”.