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DURHAM — A Georgia company’s push to amend Durham law to allow digital billboards has apparently inspired other businesses to signal city and county officials that they’d like to see the local sign ordinance rewritten.
But on Wednesday City Council members and county commissioners who sit on a joint panel that oversees local efforts to regulate land use had a firm answer to that: No.
“I’m not interested in opening this can of worms,” said Councilwoman Diane Catotti, chairwoman of the Joint City/County Planning Committee.
The committee’s discussion of the broader sign ordinance came as administrators prepare to send to the Durham Planning Commission next month a so-called “text amendment” on billboards requested by Fairway Outdoor Advertising.
Planning Director Steve Medlin said he’s fielded “numerous requests for other changes” to the law since Fairway started its push for digital billboards.
Those requests cover the gamut of possible changes, Medlin said, listing “taller signs, larger signs, more signs, off-premises signs by night, digital signs, portable signs and temporary signs” among the things people have sought. He didn’t say who’s pushing the issue.
Medlin added that once the pressure surfaced, City Manager Tom Bonfield suggested sounding out to elected officials on whether they’re still supportive of the restrictions they or their predecessors wrote into the law some 20 years ago.
The “way to do that,” Medlin said, was by running the question past the Joint City/County Planning Committee.
But Senior Assistant City Attorney Karen Sindelar warned the panel’s members Wednesday that reopening the sign ordinance would expose local governments to the risk of a lawsuit.
“Sign regulation in general is a legal minefield,” one the city and county had previously navigated on their way to writing a defensible ordinance, Sindelar said.
She noted that defending the billboard regulations in the late 1980s and early 1990s cost the city up to about $1.5 million.
The risk comes once officials start tinkering, she said, adding that if the city and county allow now-banned digital billboards, it’s likely they’d be forced eventually to allow other types of digital advertising as a matter of fairness.
But a counterpart of Sindelar’s from the county attorney’s office, Kathy Everett-Perry, said that while “there is a chance you could open yourselves to a lawsuit,” she and her colleagues believe “it is possible to craft an ordinance that’s defensible.”
Whether elected officials want to try to is up to them, Everett-Perry added.
Catotti made it clear the city government in her opinion doesn’t need the aggravation of launching a major ordinance rewrite, or another lawsuit, given the pressures it’s facing on other fronts.
“I do fear litigation. It’s a lengthy and costly process,” she said. “I hope I don’t have to remind any of you that the city still has very significant litigation pending against it on other issues — I’ll just say ‘lacrosse.’ We’re talking about a $30 million lawsuit. This is ongoing.”
In addition, there are already hints that departments like Medlin’s and the city attorney’s office will have to absorb budget cuts that will erode their capacity to address new issues, she said.
Coming out of the fiscal 2010-11 debate this spring, “we’re going to see significant staff reductions,” Catotti said.
County commissioners present weren’t any more eager to dive into the issue.
“I’ve been there and done that, and it’s a hefty task,” County Commissioner Ellen Reckhow said, noting that she’d served on the group that produced the current sign ordinance. “Passions rise high when you’re dealing with signs.”
The billboard issue has already exposed officials to that.
In the past week or so, council members have received hundreds of e-mails from residents opposing Fairway Outdoor’s digital-billboards request.
Also, a poll by the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau found that 72 percent of residents support the current restrictions.
