Battle over electronic billboard rages on in N.C.

Currituck, N.C.

An electronic billboard that changes every eight seconds still operates more than two years after Currituck County officials tried to shut it down and after an appeal to Superior Court.

Lamar Advertising of Rocky Mount converted the static display sign located in Powells Point to an electronic sign in April 2008 after getting a permit from Currituck County. About a week later, Currituck sent a letter to Lamar officials saying the sign was illegal.

The sign "causes an increase in the extent of nonconformity," county planner Donna Voliva wrote to Steve Thrift, a Lamar official.

The local ordinance does not specifically prohibit electronic signs but does not permit them either. Nonconforming conditions include, but are limited to, increasing the size of a sign more than 300 square feet or moving it closer to another sign.

Lamar's permit request from 2008 does not indicate the sign would be changed to an electronically operated one, but would be "up lit," meaning it would have a light shining on the display from below.

"We did not permit a digital billboard," Voliva said Thursday.

Lamar contends they filled out the permit as the county requested with blueprints attached. Nobody asked if the new billboard changed displays every eight seconds, said Wyatt Booth, an attorney with Vandeventer Black LLP, a Kitty Hawk law firm. The county is trying to limit Lamar's right of free commercial speech, he said.

Most importantly, the county ordinance does not prohibit electronic billboards, Booth said.

"The Board of Commissioners could have prohibited that type of billboard, but they have not," he said.

Currituck County banned new billboards in 2004 after years of complaints about the increasing clutter of signs along Caratoke Highway, a five-lane thoroughfare to the Outer Banks. Nearly 200 existing signs were allowed to remain.

Opponents say they are distracting to drivers, but billboard advocates dispute that. Some opponents have called the computer-controlled signs "television on a stick."

Lamar appealed Currituck's notice of violation to the county Board of Adjustments, which agreed in June 2008 the sign was not legal.

Lamar appealed to Superior Court. A hearing was held in August 2009, more than a year after the original violation notice.

Meanwhile, the state highway department also issued Lamar a permit for the sign but should not have, county attorney Ike McRee said. He cites state law that says it should not permit a nonconforming, grandfathered sign to be changed to one that automatically changes.

In its appeal, Lamar contended it replaced the wooden structure with a sign on a metal pole that employs light emitting diode technology, or LED, allowing the message to change every eight seconds. It was made smaller than the original sign and replaced in the same spot.

The judge sent the case back to the Board of Adjustments for clarifications, such as exactly what was the nonconformity and what is the meaning of an electronic display.

With that done, the case went before the Board of Adjustments on June 17 where the county ruling was upheld again. The county expects Lamar to appeal again.

Jeff Hampton, (252) 338-0159, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com