Letters to the editor: 02/20/03

Editorial 'over-glorifies' Harris

To the Editor:

I wouldn't go so far as to say industrialist C.J. Harris had wisdom and vision to construct the Jackson County Courthouse. Not when the hill it sits on takes off at a 10 percent descent with nothing more than a rock wall to sustain it.

Let's not over-glorify a project with cracks in the walls and a weak foundation.

Kenneth Lee

Sylva

Billboards diminish scenic beauty

To the Editor:

As I drive though our counties and communities, pollution is evident everywhere. Pollution from trash. Pollution from industry. Pollution from billboards. It is the latter which prompts this letter.

Local sign legislation has been a hot topic for years and certainly will continue to be in years to come in big cities and small rural towns around America. It's time billboard companies be sensitive to more than the dollar. It's time they say to themselves, "This 14-foot by 48-foot monopole billboard is just not right for this location."

Billboard companies have become absolute masters at operating in direct violation of legislation such as the Highway Beautification Act of the mid-1960s. If they aren't blatantly snubbing their company nose at legislation, they are certainly doing everything within their power to operate in the "gray" areas of laws and ordinances.

I'm not for totally outlawing billboards, but I am in favor of limiting size, something the billboard industry should have done voluntarily decades ago. However, the bigger the board, the greater the monthly rent - scenic beauty be darned!

Drive into downtown Franklin from U.S. 64 and look at the newly-erected and needlessly-oversized monopole billboard. Drive along U.S. 19 from Ela to Bryson City and observe the monstrosity of a billboard that totally destroys the view of the river. In these and many, many more instances, the billboards do not have to be enormous to be effective. Drive from Maggie Valley to Cherokee on U.S. 19 and be distracted from the mountain beauty by more and more oversized billboards.

On four-lane highways such as the Smoky Mountain Expressway, billboards should be limited to a maximum of 10 feet by 40 feet for same side of road and perhaps 12 feet by 40 feet for what's called a cross-reader. On two-lane secondary roads, maximum size should be capped at 8 feet by 20 feet.

There are more billboards than customers for them. Look at the public service copy on the signsŠ these are non-revenue producing billboards. According to the sign companies, this is their way of making a contribution to the community. But how many of the public service billboards can you actually read? Not many. Billboards are designed to be read in seconds, and advertising agencies, the billboard companies themselves and their customers ignore the basic rules of sign copy: No more than seven to eight words and keep the pictorial simple, if you have one.

For decades the industry has been very insensitive to the environment. If they had chosen to regulate themselves and be sensible in both size and location, then all the legislation they lobby against would not have been necessary.

I used almost 90 billboards, non of which I considered to be monstrosities, to promote a major Florida attraction and was part owner of an outdoor company whose inventory of reasonably-sized billboards numbered about 1,000 in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

The billboard industry has a fairly negative reputation nationwide, but this doesn't seem to prick their corporate conscience at all. If they don't voluntarily self-regulate, I'm in favor of even tighter local, state and federal legislation, minus the current loopholes and gray areas.

David Redman

Sylva

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