On
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 in testimony before the City
Council’s Budget Committee, City Solicitor Romulo
Diaz admitted that the Philadelphia Law Department
was completing its negotiations with the billboard
industry to “legitimize” billboards.
Translation: Behind closed doors, the Philadelphia
Law Department is busy working out a deal with the
billboard industry to legalize billboard blight in
our neighborhoods. These stealth negotiations are
happening with no public notice and no community
input.
City
Solicitor Diaz claimed that negotiations are
happening in response to a lawsuit filed by the
billboard industry against the City for its recent
passage of laws increasing taxes and license fees.
He characterized the negotiations as “a
comprehensive approach,”
And the
final terms of the deal as “imminent.”
These
outrageous covert meetings follow years of the Law
Department’s failure to pursue enforcement against
billboard cases that SCRUB and its neighborhood
partners won in the courts. All of these cases
predate the billboard industry’s lawsuit against the
City. Years of systematic neglect and inaction from
the Law Department has created an “anything goes”
environment in which the billboard industry has
continued to profit from unlicensed, illegal
billboards.
In this
atmosphere of City inaction, the billboard industry
has repeatedly and willfully disregarded our laws,
ignored judgments and orders from our courts
(including the Supreme Court of the United States),
and failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in
fines. Now, high powered attorneys representing the
billboard industry, are sitting down with the Law
Department behind closed doors working on an
agreement that, according to Diaz “will allow us to
legitimize billboards that can be legitimized—that
is my plan.”
The City
Law Department operates at the discretion of Mayor
John Street and Philadelphia City Council. Please
call the Mayor, your District and the six
"at Large" City Council members and the City
Solicitor with this simple message:
“Stop
the negotiations, cancel the deal. We want removal,
not approval of unsightly billboards.”
What can citizens do to stop the
Law Department from negotiating away Philadelphia's
visual character in covert meetings with the
billboard industry?
We can act now to by asking our
elected representatives to stop the deal. If this
outrageous agreement proceeds, Philadelphians will
be living with the outcome – bigger, brighter and
more aggressive billboard blight – in perpetuity.
-
Make a personal call to your
elected representatives, the Mayor, District
Council Person and Council Members at large
and, don’t forget the City Solicitor, who is
appointed by the Mayor.
