Clear Channel has put a value on the billboards the City of Tacoma has said the company must take down: more than $75 million.
The new number is part of the company’s latest salvo in its ongoing dispute with the city over a 1997 ordinance requiring many billboards to be removed by 2007.
Before the law took effect, Clear Channel sued. The city then negotiated a settlement that allowed Clear Channel to build digital billboards in exchange for taking down many traditional signs.
The City Council backed away from that agreement after public complaints. In August, it adopted a stricter stance on billboards, banning the digital ones and calling for the removal of at least 190 traditional ones within six months.
The city went to court to ask a Pierce County judge to formalize the death of its settlement with Clear Channel. Clear Channel notified the court last week that it’s asking to have the case moved to federal court. That’s where Clear Channel sued the city in 2007, later dropping the suit after it and the city negotiated a settlement.
In the Sept. 16 petition to move the current case back to federal court, Clear Channel confirms that it considers the settlement a legally binding contract. City officials signed the agreement in July 2010, but Clear Channel didn’t sign it until a year later. The city argues that it had effectively withdrawn the offer by the time Clear Channel acted.
The settlement says, among other things, that if the company is ordered to remove signs, “the city will compensate Clear Channel for the fair market value of those interests.” Clear Channel’s court filings are aimed at establishing what that fair market value is and assert that the city is still liable to compensate the company.
“Contrary to the requirements of the settlement agreement, the (city’s newest ordinance) does not make any provision for just compensation, and the city has not offered any compensation,” Clear Channel argues in the court papers. “Through its actions, the city has made clear that it has no intent to comply with its contractual obligations under the settlement agreement.”
Next week, the spotlight moves to King County, where the County Council is expected to vote to allow digital billboards. The council has amended the proposed law to address concerns about driver distraction and signs in rural areas. The ordinance, while providing some parameters on digital billboard lighting, would exempt digital billboards from existing rules that forbid illuminated signs from shining direct light into homes or onto public areas.
If the law passes, some suburban King County communities that now restrict digital billboards could end up inheriting them anyway as they annex unincorporated areas.
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