Illegal billboards should be removed
The Florida Department of Transportation has scheduled a final meeting for public comment on a supposed “beautification project” allowing multivision, monopole and lighted billboards on Interstate 75. The meeting will be held Friday in Lake City.
The FDOT has unlawfully permitted the reconstruction of many nonconforming billboards destroyed during the 2004 hurricanes. The Federal Highway Administration has fined the FDOT $15 million for these actions, which is to come from our state’s Transportation Enhancement Activities funds. I can only applaud the removal of illegally reconstructed billboards from our landscape.
But the proposal goes further and into things that benefit only the billboard industry: It promotes replacing 40-year-old small wooden billboards with steel monopoles, lights and multiple trivision sign faces. This part of the proposal is in violation of the Federal Highway Beautification Act and should not be permitted. Citizens should attend the meeting in Lake City on Friday to protest the imposition of trivision and multivision, steel monopole and lighted signage on the I-75 corridor.
