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DURHAM -- City Council members on Monday voted down a Georgia company's request for an ordinance change that would allow it and similar firms to place digital billboards on Durham's major road corridors.
Fairway Outdoor Advertising floated the proposal in hopes of getting permission from city and county officials to move some existing billboards and replace up to 25 percent of its total display space with digital displays.
But council members said the company didn't make enough of a case to justify changing Durham's longtime ban on new billboard placements and digital displays.
"At this juncture, I can find no compelling reason -- no compelling reason -- to change the ordinance, so I will not be supporting" the company's request, Councilwoman Cora Cole-McFadden said.
She joined the council's other six members in voting down Fairway's proposal.
The company marshaled 24 people in support of its request Monday night, many tied to local nonprofits or in some way involved in the advertising trade.
Many argued, alongside the company, that billboards are in Durham to stay regardless of what city officials might have hoped in the mid-1980s when they voted to ban new billboards and render those in place "non-conforming" under the community's zoning.
Despite their intentions, 94 billboards remain on the city and county's major road corridors.
"An axiom of business is, if you're doing the same thing today you were 30 years ago, you're probably not doing it as well," local businessman Russell Barringer told council members, arguing that the failure to cut more deeply into the count shows that the city's been pursuing the wrong strategy,
"You can't expect new technology to be regulated by a 25-year-old rule," added Thelma White, a Durham political activist.
The message wasn't lost on council members.
"It was presented by some almost like Durham, we need to jump on the bandwagon because the train has left the station and a lot of cities are doing this and we have not," Councilman Eugene Brown said, summarizing.
Opponents of the change marshaled 34 speakers, by Mayor Bill Bell's count. Their view, in general, was that allowing Fairway and other companies to erect digital billboards would damage the city's appearance.
Several noted that companies in the billboard industry aren't always particular about whom they sell display space to, ensuring that motorists would see messages they might find objectionable.
Despite Fairway's promise to lend a hand to local nonprofits, a different picture is apparent to people as they drive through counties west of the Triangle, said Seth Vidal.
On the digital billboards there, "I saw on them [ads for] strip clubs, fast food, fireworks, lap dances, outlet stores," but not a single public service announcement "of any kind," Vidal said.
Other critics said the company's pitch was long on salesmanship but short on data.
"They've done a good spin job, but they haven't documented a thing," said Lavonia Allison, chairwoman of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.
Fairway's case wasn't helped by a billboard advertising the upcoming Dixie Gun & Knife Show in Raleigh that was placed on a display overlooking the new R. Kelly Bryant Jr. pedestrian bridge over the Durham Freeway.
That touched a raw nerve for Councilman Howard Clement, given Bryant's opposition to Fairway's request and the violence that troubles neighborhoods in east Durham.
The juxtaposition was "offensive," said Clement, who also asked company officials why they opted to float the proposal in Durham instead of in Raleigh, their local base.
"Honestly, we came to Durham first because we thought Durham was the most open-minded and progressive city" in the Triangle, said Paul Hickman, Fairway's area general manager.
Clement wasn't buying. "Well, I tell you, I'm really flattered," he said, to laughter from opponents.
Monday's vote came a week before County Commissioners are scheduled to review the same request.
