Exemption to 40-year-old billboard ban worries some
MONTPELIER, Vt.—For 40 years, it's been the guardian of Vermont's pastoral landscapes, keeping interstates and back roads clear of outdoor advertising. Enacted in 1968, the state's billboard ban has always been a sacred cow -- in a state where few hold that distinction.
But an exemption to it -- approved by lawmakers and awaiting Gov. Jim Douglas' signature -- has some worrying that roadside signs could be on the way back.
Crafted in the final hours of the Legislature's session Saturday, the measure was aimed at preserving a "See Bellows Falls" mural recently painted on the side of a barn just off Interstate 91. But the language of the bill opens the door to the erection of similar signs elsewhere.
"I don't think Vermonters realize that now, billboards can start appearing all over the state," said John Zicconi, a spokesman for the state Agency of Transportation. "It doesn't allow billboards along the interstate, but as you drive around Vermont, you might start seeing something you haven't seen in 40 years."
Alaska, Hawaii and Maine are the only other states that ban billboards. The Vermont ban took effect in 1968, banning new billboards and giving the owners of existing ones five years to remove them.
It's as beloved by Vermont visitors as it is by residents -- maybe more so.
"Guests tell us," said Joseph Sutton, 59, owner of The Waybury Inn, a 14-unit inn in Middlebury. "Our guests are primarily from New England and the mid-Atlantic, and driving through that geography and then getting to Vermont, there's a clear difference in seeing mountains and open fields and not signs."
The brouhaha started over the Bellows Falls mural, a 7-by-31-foot painting that pictures a vintage sedan headed south on Route 5 under the words "See Bellows Falls Vermont, 2 1/2 miles south on 5."
Commissioned by the Bellows Falls Downtown Development Alliance last October, it was ordered removed by the state Travel Information Council, an obscure seven-member agency tasked with enforcing the billboard ban.
The Bellows Falls group went to lawmakers in a desperate bid to bypass the Council, and it worked.
As part of a transportation bill, they included a provision that exempts murals that promote downtowns, provided they're hand-painted, on the outside of a structure that's existed on the site for at least 25 years and are located no more than 3 miles away from the destination they promote.
The measure also restricts wording on the murals to words relating to direction, distance and name of the downtown, doesn't allow product advertising and bans signs visible from an interstate highway.
The exemption was opposed by the state Agency of Transportation, the Agency of Natural Resources and the Travel Information Council, all of which considered it bad policy.
"It is inappropriate to create a specific exemption to a statute that is one of Vermont's signature environmental achievements," wrote John Sayles, deputy secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, in a memo to lawmakers.
State Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, whose district includes Bellows Falls, called the state's position absurd.
"There's no one that would fight harder for upholding Vermont's billboard law than me. But this is an example where bureaucrats in government are not exercising common sense when they interpret Vermont's billboard law," said Shumlin, D-Putney.
"I don't believe anyone can logically argue that this is the beginning of a slippery slope," he said.
Sutton, who sits on the Travel Information Council, said he hopes the exemption doesn't lead to unrestricted growth in road signs. "But we shall see," he said.
Zicconi, the Agency of Transportation spokesman, said the language of the exemption applies to two dozen places in Vermont with "downtown" designations.
"At least today, there are 24 places in Vermont where these things can happen. That's 24 towns. If there's four sides of town, you could have four of them. We literally could have these things all over the state," he said.
The mural's painter, third-generation sign painter Frank Hawkins, 57, is bemused by all the hoo-ha. He's thrilled that his mural will stay up, but surprised.
"The anti-billboard law is one of the selling points of Vermont life. I'm amazed the Legislature did what they did. I figured it would get coded out."
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