Practically 93% of San Jose residents are in opposition to it. South Bay astronomers have referred to as it a “travesty.” And a metropolis oversight committee says it could flout San Jose’s local weather and roadway security objectives.
However when it comes down as to whether San Jose ought to unravel its decades-old ban on new billboards, the 11-member Metropolis Council may have remaining say subsequent month.
On Feb. 15, the council is scheduled to think about approving building of two new LED-illuminated billboards alongside Freeway 101. If it does so, the billboards could be the primary indicators legally constructed inside the metropolis in additional than 36 years.
San Jose outlawed the development of latest billboards on public land in 1972 and citywide in 1985. On the time, the motion was touted as a “very robust dedication on the a part of the Metropolis Council to beautify the town.”
Airport Director John Aiken has requested the Metropolis Council to approve a contract with media firm Clear Channel to construct two new digital billboards – every measuring 1,000 sq. ft – alongside Freeway 101 on Mineta San Jose Worldwide Airport property. In trade, Clear Channel has promised to take away eight conventional billboards inside the metropolis, pay the airport a minimum of $600,000 a yr and permit the airport to make use of 10% of the promoting time on the billboards to advertise its providers.
“I believe there shall be a huge impact from these takedowns of billboards to the neighborhood,” Aiken instructed the town’s Airport Fee this week.
The town maintains that a 2007 contract reached with Clear Channel for promoting alternatives on the airport covers the brand new billboards and is legally sound. Nevertheless, one other billboard firm, Outfront Media, argues that the contract excludes out of doors, free-standing billboards so the town could be required to provoke a brand new aggressive bidding course of.
After 4 hours of discussing the matter, the Airport Fee voted 5-1 to advocate for the second time in latest months that the Metropolis Council reject the billboard proposal and re-evaluate the coverage that allowed it to get this far. Amongst their considerations, commissioners stated the billboards would waste power, shine an excessive amount of mild on the Lick Observatory, elevate contract points and distract drivers. In addition they cited overwhelming neighborhood opposition.
“The individuals have spoken and we’re not listening,” Commissioner Catherine Hendrix stated. “I don’t wish to see two billboards, I don’t wish to see 22 billboards, I don’t assume we want billboards on this metropolis.”
Commissioner Ken Pyle stated the billboards could be a “wasteful use of power” and questioned how it could align with the town’s local weather objectives and Imaginative and prescient Zero – San Jose’s effort to get rid of site visitors fatalities.
Councilmember David Cohen, the airport fee liaison, stated Friday he was not sure which approach he would vote subsequent month. Cohen cited advantages resembling eradicating dilapidated billboards and growing airport income however added he has related considerations as Pyle relating to consistency with the town’s local weather objectives.
“Clearly we’ve heard numerous public opposition to the proposal and we’re simply going to must weigh all these varied elements and determine what the most effective total method for these billboards and the general coverage is,” he stated.
A metropolis survey final yr discovered that just about 93% of San Jose residents opposed permitting new digital indicators to be constructed alongside freeways.
However that report got here greater than two years after the town already put the wheels in movement to just do that.
In 2018, after years of lobbying from billboard firms, the Metropolis Council voted to permit as much as 22 new digital indicators and billboards to be constructed on 17 city-owned websites. That plan referred to as for permitting new indicators to be tacked onto a handful of city-owned downtown buildings, such because the Hammer Theatre and the Heart for Performing Arts and parking garages, and including new digital billboards on as much as eight freeway-facing public properties, together with some on the airport. Metropolis officers collected bids however haven't but awarded any contracts for these initiatives.
On the time of the vote, the measure handed seamlessly with virtually no enter from residents. On the day of the vote, the council solely heard from billboard trade executives and lobbyists, the town’s tourism department and representatives from the Lick Observatory, who had been the one ones to voice points with the proposal.
Since metropolis leaders had already made this determination years in the past and Clear Channel has adopted the necessities laid out earlier than it, airport officers argue that the undertaking shouldn't be rejected.
Metropolis leaders dropped a separate proposal by the town final yr to permit personal property house owners to construct as much as 75 billboards on freeway-facing websites alongside Freeway 87, Interstate 280 and Interstate 880 after going through intense public scrutiny.
On the Jan. 26 airport fee assembly, Paul Lynam, a workers astronomer on the Lick Observatory, accused airport officers of “an try to hoodwink the viewers” by saying that they consulted with astronomers from the observatory once they have solely ever opposed it.
San Jose resident Les Levitt, who helped launch a grassroots effort No Digital Billboards in San Jose, hopes this newest vote will make it “more and more tough to disregard the rising sentiment in opposition to these billboards.”
“This could ship a message to the Metropolis Council that twice – and this time after a really deliberative session, the airport fee is recommending in opposition to billboards on the airport,” he stated, “and even additional a revisit of the coverage that led to having billboards on the airport.”