The city of Columbus’ billboard committee agreed Wednesday to bring back discussion of the city’s moratorium on new billboards, which has been in place since 2000.
The committee, composed of city councilmen Marty Turner, Joseph Mickens and Bill Gavin, chief operations officers David Armstrong and city attorney Jeff Turnage, agreed to place the moratorium on the city agenda as a discussion item during the city council’s Dec. 16 meeting.
The city council tabled a similar motion during its October council meeting.
The billboard committee was formed in November 2013 but had met only sporadically and not brought any proposals to the council until October, when the city was approached by Leonard Busby, owner of digital billboard company Busby Companies out of Laurel. Busby’s company already has a digital billboard installed on Cleda Drive near Lion Hills Golf Club and he has shown interest in placing additional billboards in Columbus.
At last month’s Lowndes County Board of Supervisors meeting, the board approved Busby’s plans to erect an electronic billboard on a piece of county-owned land located inside Columbus city limits. That plan still needs approval from the Mississippi Department of Transportation. If approved, the company would pay $1,500 per month, money that would go to the Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority.
In addition to Busby’s plans, Lamar Outdoor Advertising has also shown interest in erecting electronic billboards should the city lift its ban.
Armstrong said informal discussions with representatives from Lamar, which has numerous billboards in the city, revealed that the company would be willing to remove multiple existing billboards for each electronic billboard it would be allowed to erect.
During Wednesday’s meeting Armstrong suggested that if the council voted to lift the moratorium, the council could then listen to proposals from Busby and Lamar before making amendments to its sign ordinance.
While Mickens and Turner advocated for lifting the moratorium, Gavin expressed some reservations, especially with Busby’s proposed plan to erect an electronic billboard along Highway 45 near Walmart.
“That’s in my ward,” Gavin said. “And we’ve been working for some time now to clean up Highway 45 and make it more attractive. Right now, we have 33 billboards between the Magnolia Bowl and the city limits to the north. Some of them are double-decked and have billboards on both sides, so you’re looking at 40 to 45 billboards. That concerns me. It looks like a hodge-podge already.”
Mayor Robert Smith said committee members should consider the potential impact lifting the ban would have on future businesses.
“You have to think about retail recruitment, too,” Smith said. “Those retailers are going to be attracted to an area that looks nice. Losing one potential retail recruit might wind up costing a lot more than the rental fees we might get from a billboard company.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 52 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.