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Oldsmar has achieved a landmark in its development as a city: It has been sued over its billboard ordinance.
That's just the way it goes these days. Communities that want to improve their visual environment have to pay a price in legal fees to defend their antibillboard laws in court. Billboard companies and their attorneys will do everything they can to put the cities - and therefore the taxpayers - through the wringer.
Lockridge Outdoor Advertising has sued Oldsmar in federal court in Tampa, claiming, as these lawsuits usually do, that the city's ordinance relating to billboards is unconstitutional.
Such ordinances do need to be properly constructed, but the companies' claims of constitutional violations often are bogus. What it boils down to is that billboard companies just don't think communities should have the right to ban their product. But courts have upheld properly constructed billboard laws time after time.
Often the lawsuits are filed when a community tries to get the billboards taken down after the companies are given a number of years to recover their investment. The courts have upheld the so-called amortization periods as long as they are of sufficient length, usually five to seven years.
In the Oldsmar case, Lockridge wants to put up nine new billboards where none stand now, mostly along Tampa Road, Racetrack Road and Curlew Road. Oldsmar has only one billboard now, on a property annexed into the city, and city officials have asked that it be removed.
Lockridge applied for permits to put up his signs, but the applications were denied because of the city ordinance. Lockridge hired an attorney, E. Adam Webb of Atlanta, whose law firm specializes in suing communities over their sign laws. Webb also is the attorney for Granite State Outdoor Advertising, a Georgia company that doesn't erect billboards but sells the permits that it wins after suing small communities to topple their sign ordinances.
It isn't every day that a city the size of Oldsmar, which has just a bit over 10,000 residents, gets dragged into federal court. It can be a bit shocking. It also can be expensive. Cities often must hire outside attorneys to help them fight the cases in court.
That's what the billboard companies count on - that the cases will be too intimidating, too lengthy and too expensive so communities will relent and reach settlements that allow the billboards to remain along the roads or even give new rights where there were none. Pinellas County commissioners, for example, recently buckled under the pressure, approving a settlement with companies that simply refused to take down their signs even after they became illegal.
Oldsmar may face a long battle to defend its sign ordinance. Whether it can afford the battle is a matter City Council members will have to decide. But as a community, Oldsmar should never doubt that it has the right, upheld by the courts, to decide it wants to be a visually pleasing place and that towering billboards don't fit in that picture.