U.S. 42 Billboard risks outweigh the benefits

By Vicki Ker­man, Con­cerned Cit­i­zens for Your Safety –

On Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 10, the Card­ing­ton Town­ship Trustees held a regularly-scheduled meet­ing. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Con­cerned Cit­i­zens for Your Safety (CCFYS) attended. Lind Media’s bill­board appeals hear­ing has been sched­uled for Sep­tem­ber 26.

We asked for and were given a copy of Lind’s appeal appli­ca­tion. It is pro­vided in its entirety on www.billboardsafety.org. There are sev­eral points in Lind’s cover let­ter which are either mate­ri­ally incor­rect or mis­rep­re­sent the truth, and which beg our response.

1. Lind states that “It is our feel­ing that [the revo­ca­tion of the per­mit on August 21] is a result of a small, well orga­nized group of indi­vid­u­als that has threat­ened and bul­lied the Town­ship offi­cials based on an unfounded high­way safety argument.”

This is incor­rect. The per­mit was revoked because the CR 128/TR 143 inter­sec­tion was not rec­og­nized as being an inter­sec­tion by either the Town­ship Zon­ing Offi­cer, Lind employ­ees, or Lind’s pres­i­dent, him­self. As we have pre­sented before, Ohio Revised Code 4511.01(KK)-1 clearly defines an inter­sec­tion, and this meets that def­i­n­i­tion. In addi­tion, it is paved, main­tained by the county, has stop signs at each end, and is fre­quently used.

Lind’s pres­i­dent has been doing this for 21 years. Lind has no fewer than 215 bill­board loca­tions in North­ern Ohio alone. Accord­ing to Lind’s web­site, “Exper­tise in loca­tion acqui­si­tion, per­mit­ting, and devel­op­ment is per­haps the hall­mark of [our com­pany].” In addi­tion, Flats Cap­i­tal (an 11-year-old com­pany owned by Lind’s pres­i­dent and his wife, and which pur­chased the prop­erty) owns no fewer than 12 prop­er­ties in Rich­land County, seven of which are small parcels with the only struc­ture being a billboard.

The net result is that Lind pres­i­dent and his staff, with all of their expe­ri­ence, should have been famil­iar with the Ohio Revised Code def­i­n­i­tion of an inter­sec­tion. Bill­board erec­tion required a vari­ance. Period.

2. Lind states that “Lit­eral appli­ca­tion of the zon­ing code in this instance would result in undue and unnec­es­sary hardship.”

This is not a hard­ship case. In 1935, the State rerouted US 42, cre­at­ing the tri­an­gle, and finan­cially com­pen­sated the own­ers for the loss of prop­erty use. Since that time, it has been car­ried on the Mor­row County Auditor’s books as “waste­land,” val­ued at a mere $300. If a vari­ance had been applied for prior to Flats Cap­i­tal pur­chas­ing the par­cel, there would not have been an “unnec­es­sary hard­ship” because the State had already paid the owner for loss of use.

Even though Flats Cap­i­tal bought the par­cel and the bill­boards have been erected, it still is not a hard­ship. They, as well as the Town­ship, made an error in read­ing and apply­ing the zon­ing code. Both Lind and Flats Cap­i­tal had every oppor­tu­nity to look at the Township’s zon­ing reg­u­la­tions, which are on the Township’s web­site for every­one to see.

We caught the error not more than 10 min­utes after look­ing on the Township’s web­site and read­ing the zon­ing code. And we have no spe­cial exper­tise in zon­ing or bill­board per­mit­ting. Given their exper­tise and exten­sive expe­ri­ence, the pres­i­dent, or one of his employ­ees, whose job it is to eval­u­ate zon­ing codes, could/should have caught this as well when per­form­ing their due diligence.

If there is a hard­ship, they brought it upon them­selves. Self-imposed hard­ships do not qual­ify for a variance.

3. Lind states, “Despite our belief … that bill­boards are safety neu­tral, we offered to work with the com­mu­nity group to advo­cate legit­i­mate road­way upgrades includ­ing guardrails, traf­fic sig­nals, road­way vaca­tion, and veg­e­ta­tion man­age­ment. We have not been taken up on this offer.”

Sev­eral points here.

First, the US 42 curve is already a dan­ger­ous one. There have been 22 acci­dents, includ­ing one fatal­ity, in less than six years. The Card­ing­ton Fire Chief, in an inter­view with Mans­field TV, cited the numer­ous times when he has had to pull vehi­cles out of the ditch in the triangle.

Sec­ond, the bill­boards are located at an ideal spot for max­i­mum dri­ver dis­trac­tion. They cap­ture eyes for a longer period of time than if they were on a straight-away, and are seen with “cen­tral,” as opposed to “periph­eral” vision.

Third, if the bill­boards are approved, they can eas­ily be con­verted from “poster boards” to even more dis­tract­ing CEVMS (Chang­ing Elec­tronic Vari­able Mes­sage Signs) by apply­ing to and pay­ing a fee to the State. It is a mere for­mal­ity. The Town­ship has no rules in its code about this type of sign.

Fourth, the columns present a severe haz­ard to motorists who, for what­ever rea­son, lose con­trol of their vehi­cle and end up in the tri­an­gle. With the columns there, the dri­ver risks wrap­ping the vehi­cle around one of them, with the poten­tial for severe injury, if not death to him/herself or his/her passengers.

In such an unfor­tu­nate event, not only would there be risk to human life, but there would also be a huge finan­cial risk to the Town­ship, as a rel­a­tive of an affected motorist could eas­ily sue them, cit­ing that even though the Town­ship offi­cials knew in advance that the bill­boards pre­sented a safety haz­ard, there was a lia­bil­ity because they had allowed them to remain.

Finally, what about those guard rails? First , they make it worse for motor­cy­clists. Sec­ond, installing these would be admit­ting up front that the bill­boards present a safety prob­lem. To take a curve which is already dan­ger­ous and make it less safe is irre­spon­si­ble at best.

4. Lind states, “The bill­boards at US 42 are a com­mu­nity asset and a key eco­nomic dri­ver for the busi­ness community.”

We ques­tion valu­ing busi­ness growth above human life.

CCFYS would never adver­tise on one of these bill­boards. Why? Because the last thing we would like to see is a pic­ture of our ad on one of those pan­els above a man­gled car wrapped around one of the columns, with ambu­lance lights flash­ing as they trans­port the severely injured or killed per­sons away.

5. Finally, Lind states, “They were installed in good faith and proper author­ity.” We ques­tion this sen­ti­ment as well.

Imme­di­ately after we dis­cov­ered the prob­lem with the per­mit – before the bill­boards had been erected – we emailed and sub­se­quently talked with Lind’s pres­i­dent to give him a “heads up” that there might be a prob­lem with the per­mit, and that he might want to hold off any fur­ther con­struc­tion until it was resolved. This was a Wednes­day late after­noon. The next day, on Thurs­day, all four bill­boards went up, and on Sun­day, three days later, two weld­ing crews were on site affix­ing the platforms.

CCFYS is truly con­cerned that Lind has not only mis­rep­re­sented the truth in many aspects of their fil­ing, but that they view our oppo­si­tion to the bill­boards as being misplaced.

Our posi­tion – that the bill­boards add an unnec­es­sary safety haz­ard to an already-dangerous curve – is wide­spread. Com­mu­nity mem­bers with whom we talk are vir­tu­ally unan­i­mous in their high level of con­cern, are con­fused as to how the Town­ship offi­cials could have let them be erected in the first place, and feel that they need to be taken down. We have just started cir­cu­lat­ing a peti­tion to doc­u­ment the preva­lence of this sen­ti­ment. If you would like to add your voice to this effort, please con­sider sign­ing the peti­tion, or even cir­cu­lat­ing one your­self. Feel free to call me at (419) 946‑1505 to do so!

Oh, and pen­cil in Sep­tem­ber 26 at 7 PM at the Card­ing­ton Town­ship build­ing on your cal­en­dar. Even though we aren’t allowed to speak, the meet­ing is open to the pub­lic. What a great oppor­tu­nity to see first-hand how deci­sions are made!

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Sep 11 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.