Beacon or blight?

The furor that swept Homewood over an electronic billboard in March seemed to catch everyone off guard. Hundreds of residents protested the 672-square-foot digital billboard that was erected at the intersection of Lakeshore Drive and Green Springs Highway. They picketed, signed petitions and boycotted businesses that advertised with New Point Digital, the billboard company. 

But then, almost as quickly as the billboard went up, the company agreed to find a new location. The company and city have identified a new spot in Homewood farther away from homes. They are waiting to make sure the new location satisfies all legal requirements before making its new location public.

But the skirmish did not come as a surprise to a few residents, and if the Jefferson County Commission doesn’t take action, similar land fights could break out again.

Local activists raise their voices

When New Point Digital selected the BP gas station for its second billboard, the company looked at every possible angle: how many cars passed, how much light was emitted and how far it was from local residences. 

But the company missed something: Scott Dean. Dean, who lives near the billboard, had previously worked in public relations and knew how to cook up a media storm. So when 100 locals showed up outside the gas station with protest signs, every local TV station in the greater Birmingham area showed up as well. He compiled lists of local politicians and businesses to boycott.

“Scott is the most thorough person I’ve ever met,” said Jennifer Andress, one of about 10 local residents who lead the protests. Andress has a history of pressuring local politicians. 

“[Andress] is just a person that takes up causes,” said Dean. “When she saw the sign, she thought it was enormous and out of place.”

People who live near the sign, such as Dean, were worried that its light would affect their sleep. The houses around the billboard, such as Dean’s, are valued at around $300,000, and he figured that his property value would take a hit.

Andress and others imagined a domino effect of lower property values throughout Homewood. They also worried that a bright billboard that changed images every eight seconds could distract drivers and lead to accidents.

But as much as anything, residents were angry that no one had told them about the billboard. Representatives for New Point didn’t show up at a specially called City Council meeting. The company continued to construct the billboard through the protests, even on the weekend. Then New Point connected the billboard’s electricity even after the company had promised to move it. 

The protesters saw these actions as the work of a company that was still trying put one past them. The law requires 300 feet between the billboard and nearby homes; the billboard stood exactly 300 feet and two inches away — and those two extra inches were evidence of chicanery.

The protesters remained committed. Andress continued to organize protests and boycotts even after she read comments online that mocked her focus on a single billboard and even after her own husband told her he was tired of hearing about it. 

Local elected officials at every level rallied around the protesters and negotiated a meeting at the county courthouse with New Point. Andress showed up to the negotiation to show her support, but when she saw the president of New Point walking past with his lawyer, she couldn’t help herself.

“I told him, ‘We’re here and we’re not going away until the billboard goes down,’ as he was getting in the elevator with his lawyer,” Andress said. “They didn’t say anything back. I shouldn’t have said anything. It was me running my mouth, but I couldn’t not say anything.”

DuBose’s rapid descent

The billboard controversy marked a new low in the precipitous fall in the fortunes of David DuBose, president of New Point Digital.

Two years before, DuBose was named Alabama Broadcaster of the Year for 30 years of work in radio. He was in the process then of negotiating a deal to buy local radio stations worth tens of millions of dollars. 

Less than two years later, DuBose had been repeatedly betrayed by his former employers and business associates, according to accusations in multiple lawsuits. Cox Media Group, which employed him for more than 16 years, shortchanged him hundreds of thousands of dollars in the deal to sell radio stations, he claims.

Then one of DuBose’s closest advisors and the godfather to his son forced him out of his job at Summit Media, a company that he played a principal part in creating, he claimed in a separate lawsuit.

So when county officials and residents of Homewood attacked him online, called his home and, he says, told him on the street, “We’re watching you,” once again he felt betrayed.

He saw his new company as the local underdog that would provide competition against the big billboard monopoly of Lamar Advertising Company, which could lead to lower prices for local businesses and more jobs for local workers. He even promised to give 10 percent of advertisements to local nonprofits. 

Even though he followed the rules for setting up a billboard, he still thought some residents would get upset. But he believed if he could just get the billboard up, residents would see that just a “birthday candle’s worth of light” would make it across the highway and into their homes.

He lashed back at residents who he thought were mischaracterizing the sign: After all, it rose from a gas station and had to compete with other large signs from health care providers on either side. 

“Essentially it was an all-out lynch mob attack,” DuBose said. “They began a boycott of our clients and businesses, destroying our company and disparaging my reputation.”

He thought it was wrong of local politicians to rile up the public, so he threatened to sue the city and county for the $500,000 in yearly revenue he would lose without the billboard. The city threatened to sue back.

 “We’re not going to be taken advantage of,” DuBose said. “And we’re going to do what’s necessary to protect our interests if we can’t work it out.”

But the billboard represented such a huge fraction of his company’s projected earnings this year that losing the billboard would be a major blow. New Point Digital was founded less than a year ago and operates only one other billboard. Local advertisers who had signed up started to pull out, and DuBose was forced to negotiate.

Even though billboard companies have successfully sued cities and counties in the past, DuBose decided to negotiate without his lawyer. Because his meeting with local officials was private, it’s unclear whether New Point will receive preferential tax rates or a better location to compensate for the cost of moving.

Even this compromise provoked criticism. 

“My wife was giving me grief about how all this press coverage is making it seem like Homewood won,” DuBose said. “I don’t necessarily think that that’s what it was really all about.”

How it could’ve been avoided

Many localities across the country haven’t changed their laws to account for the disruptions posed by electronic billboards. The images move rapidly and can be brighter than regular billboards. So although this dispute caught local leaders by surprise, fights over electronic billboards have been erupting across the country for nearly a decade.

In 2006 Scenic Alabama, a local nonprofit organization opposed to billboards, predicted it would happen in Homewood. The organization lobbied county officials to require commission approval before billboards went up.

Jefferson County is full of small pockets of unincorporated land surrounded by city land. Many cities such as Homewood look a bit like a sponge on a map because there are so many holes of county land inside them. One such hole was the BP gas station. Many cities have different building requirements, so the county rules that apply to the gas station are different than the city rules that apply across the street.

Because of Jefferson County’s isolated land-pockets, Scenic Alabama knew that a company could take advantage of county land to place billboards inside cities. But the Lamar Advertising Company lobbied against any changes.

So when New Point met the county’s requirements in December, there was nothing Michael Morrison, the man responsible for issuing permits, could do but approve it. 

It is unclear if local pressure would be as effective the next time a billboard goes up if the owner were a more established company. The Lamar Advertising Company has a virtual monopoly on the remaining billboard permits in Jefferson County, and it owns more than 300,000 signs nationally.

Some county officials, such as Commission President David Carrington, who received criticism from both sides of the controversy for both doing too little and too much, say they plan a review of current billboard regulations. The county could require all billboards to get council approval, or at least billboards close to city boundaries. 

Morrison believes these notification requirements could be difficult to implement because of how complicated the county’s boundaries are. But the billboard rules do need to be changed, according to Morrison, in one respect.

“Our ordinates are so old they don’t speak to modern technology, lumens or electronic displays,” Morrison said. “They absolutely need to be updated.”

For updates on the billboard, visit thehomewoodstar.com.