How were digital signs uprooted in Va. Beach? Gardeners.

VIRGINIA BEACH

Sure, these women throw the occasional tea party. Yes, their floral arrangements are always impeccable. And there’s no denying that they are of a certain age – mostly older than 50.

But as Virginia Beach’s politicians and business leaders know, it is a mistake to dismiss them as little old ladies in tennis shoes. The gardeners stuck a green thumb in the eye of opponents Tuesday when the City Council voted to ban new electronic signs. They cheered from their chairs after six of the 11 on the council voted for the ban.

When it comes to the issue of signs and billboards in Virginia Beach, few groups carry as much political clout as the garden clubs. They are passionate, well-connected and unafraid to flex their pruning shears.

The clubs and members of the city’s beautification commission have also been out in force in recent months battling billboard company Adams Outdoor Advertising. They have targeted council members who want to change the Beach’s strict billboard ordinance to allow them to go digital. With their e-mail and letter-writing campaigns they recently got the council to defer a vote on digital billboards.

“When they speak, the council listens,” said Councilman Harry Diezel, who sponsored the change in the billboard law, but who sided with the clubs on the LEDs. “They have some interesting voice power there.”

Bouquets of cream roses and bright hydrangeas dotted the sunny ballroom of one of the city’s toniest country clubs earlier this month.

The doyennes of the city’s gardens clubs gathered there to celebrate their efforts in sprucing up Virginia Beach by planting flower beds and maintaining the city gardens. The women sipped wine, joked about their limited computer knowledge and munched on Princess Anne Country Club’s chicken lunch – salad or stuffed into a crêpe.

Only a handful of men ventured into the setting to pay homage to the clubs, but they included two of Virginia Beach’s most powerful leaders: City Manager Jim Spore and Mayor Will Sessoms.

“We are a beautiful city because of what you do,” Sessoms told the women.

The clubs have spent thousands of dollars on mulch, flowers and trees for the city, helped raise money for civic projects and were the force behind many of the Beach’s beautification ordinances, Sessoms said.

During the 1970s and 1980s, when development sprawled across Virginia Beach, garden clubs pushed for smaller business signs and lobbied for companies to landscape their properties. They were also crucial in encouraging the planting of trees along medians.

“The attractiveness of the city, some people take for granted,” said Bob Jones, a member of the city’s beautification commission, which has partnered with the garden clubs on these ordinances. “There’s been a dramatic improvement.”

The commission is a separate private group, but its membership overlaps with the garden clubs and includes heavy hitters such as Tom Ward, a retired Navy rear admiral, and former Councilwoman Nancy Parker. Jones is a former Virginia Beach mayor, a lawyer and the alliance’s informal counselor, warning them when they’re on legal or political quicksand.

The clubs started out 60 years ago as a civic and social network for the wives of businessmen, doctors and lawyers. The city’s first garden clubs started around the Oceanfront and the city’s affluent North End. Now there are more than 40 clubs in Virginia Beach, with a membership upward of 200, including a handful of men.

In some ways, the clubs are a throwback to different era. Past presidents are referred to by their “society” or husbands’ names in official programs. And members of the clubs still travel in the same circles as the city’s movers and shakers. They know them personally or see them at the country club or church.

Former Councilwoman Reba McClanan launched her political career while she was the president of the garden clubs council in the mid- 1970s. When she lost her bid for re-election in 2008, McClanan returned to lead the garden clubs.

Sessoms’ wife is a member of a garden club. While she hasn’t gotten involved in the signs issues, she has shared with him the fiery e-mails that garden clubs leaders have sent, Sessoms said.

“They give substantially of their time, and they’re not averse to expressing strong opinions,” said Peter Schmidt, a former councilman who dealt with the billboard issue about eight years ago.

The organization may boast a few high-powered names, but the majority of garden club members are “everyday people,” said Cheryll Klobuchar, a past president.

They care about the city and come armed to council meetings with reams of research about signs, Klobuchar said.

The groups’ most pivotal piece of legislation is Virginia Beach’s billboard ordinance, considered one of the strictest around. They backed it, and in 1987 the City Council adopted the ordinance, which prohibits new billboards and bans major work or renovation on existing signs . There are now 30 billboards left in Virginia Beach.

Adams Outdoor Advertising has challenged the ordinance in court several times and lost. Now, the company hopes to get the c ouncil to modify the ordinance. Adams has contributed to council members’ political campaigns, enlisted the Virginia Beach chapter of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce and offered to advertise public safety announcements on the billboards.

For members of the garden clubs, the proposed change could reverse years of their work.

“It’s almost like a mother with a child,” McClanan said, “who creates something and sees it improved – and seeing it possibly torn down in one fell swoop is seen as a threat.”

The proposed change is a nod to new technology and only allows council members to review applications for companies to replace existing billboards with digital ones, said John Wilson, chairman of the Virginia Beach chamber.

Despite a very pro-business City Council, Adams and the Chamber have faced a surprisingly uphill fight.

“We’re a little disappointed that they haven’t embraced it as much as we’d like to see them do,” Wilson said.

Schmidt isn’t surprised by the contentiousness of the signs issue. He tried to reopen the discussion on the billboard ordinance in 2002 soon after he was elected to the council. He quickly learned he had made a rookie mistake. Members of the garden clubs, and in some cases their powerful husbands, showed up at the next council meeting in opposition. Schmidt also heard from his aunt, who headed one of the city’s garden clubs, that she was disappointed.

“There are certain things you don’t want to remember,” Schmidt said. “It was probably naive to not know it would raise their ire.”