Opinion

Editorial

City must find way to accommodate LED signs

The Amarillo City Commission voted Tuesday to bar so-called LED billboards within city limits.

The ordinance gives the city control of "off-premises" billboards that use the lights to change on the big screens.

Had the city not taken action and passed some kind of controlling measure by June 1, the Texas Department of Transportation would have had jurisdiction over the placement of the lighted signs.

One example of an LED sign is, ironically, owned by the city itself.

It is in front of the Civic Center and faces traffic on Buchanan Street.

There are similar signs around town, but like the city's, these are on the property of the business and therefore called on-premises signs and not subject to the jurisdiction that controls the bigger billboards.

At an early morning hearing several weeks ago, the only member of Amarillo's governing body to embrace the LED billboards was Mayor Debra McCartt, who argued these signs on Interstate 40 and I-27 would bring business into the city.

Others argued against this method of advertising as a distraction and therefore a driver safety issue and blight on the picturesque beauty of our fair city.

One city commissioner has called this a holding action until the city can modify the measure and have a better notion of how many and where these signs might go.

Local control is a good thing, but the ironies are that the city is already in the LED sign game, that I-40 and I-27 aren't exactly scenic routes and that Amarillo is supposedly pro-business.

The City Commission's action to gain control over the state is proper.

But reopening the local discussion is even more important.

The Commission should do so as quickly as possible.

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Posted: May 22, 2008