Lawyers & Planners Seminar on Signage & Citizen Rights

Given the Craddock/Tygard LED billboard issue coming to a head, this announcement from Scenic Tennessee published on the District 17 e-mail list is timely:

The Tennessee Municipal Attorneys Association and the Tennessee Chapter of the American Planning Association will present a signage-law seminar on Thursday, February 26, 2009, from 8 a.m. to noon (central time) at the Franklin Marriott at Cool Springs (just off I-65, south of Nashville). See attached files for details about the seminar and related activities. Registration ($75) is through the TMAA website, www.tmaa.us. 

The primary panelist is Bill Brinton, a nationally known attorney from Jacksonville, Fla., and one of the country's foremost authorities on signage issues, especially with regard to public rights and citizen involvement. 

Readers of Scenic Tennessee's Viewpointsmay recall hearing about Mr. Brinton's efforts in 2006 to stop a Florida outdoor advertiser from removing dozens of crape myrtles, palm trees and other plantings along Highway 192 in Osceola County. The company charged that the vegetation, much of it planted with taxpayer dollars, violated Florida's 500-foot "viewing zone" around their billboards. The public outcry was deafening, and most of the trees were spared. You can read about it at http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2436/t/3413/

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This is a rare opportunity for sign-control advocates to hear stories like this while also gaining solid information on ordinances, trends in the billboard industry, defense of constitutional challenges and so on.   

If you have questions, please contact Dennis Huffer, TMAA executive director, at HufferD@tennessee.edu.