Each year, a few pieces of legislation seem to spring from nowhere and race through the Tallahassee maze with lightning speed. . . . Even by Tallahassee's limp standards, the House Judiciary Committee's sellout to the billboard industry is outrageously craven. The panel Tuesday voted 11-4 for a bill that would gut every billboard ordinance in the state. The billboard companies were given about five years to recoup the money that they had invested in their signs before they had to be removed. Since then, the billboard industry has been trying to make an end run around the will of the people by getting the Legislature to in effect undo what the voters of Jacksonville did.
Most local governments compensate sign owners through amortization.
Their effort heads off a movement by numerous local governments that have had their fill of billboard proliferation. The Senate Community Affairs Committee Monday approved an amendment to the Growth Management Act. . . Senators Carrie Meek of Miami, Karen Thurman of Inverness, Gwen Margolis of North Miami Beach, and George Kirkpatrick of Gainesville. Remember their names. But apparently some of their elected representatives have greater loyalty to industry lobbyists than they do to the people who put them in office.