The News Tribune (Lite) - Private businesses, public rights-of-way

TheNewsTribune.com
Section: Opinion

Private businesses, public rights-of-way

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Pierce County has thousands of reasons to keep pressing its campaign to clear street corners and county roadways of illegal signs.

In just five months this year, county crews have removed 9,275 signs. That’s a lot less visual blight, not to mention fewer traffic hazards.

The program has its critics. Real estate agents and developers, struggling with a depressed housing market, have complained that the county’s enforcement is further hobbling their business.

They are right in one respect: The county’s timing could have been better, but not for the reason the housing industry cites.

The law forbidding signs in county rights-of-way has been on the books for years. Lax enforcement helped encourage a proliferation of signs advertising everything from weight loss solutions to foreclosure rescue to new residential developments.

The hangup was a provision requiring county officials to notify the sign owner 48 hours before they removed the sign, making enforcement unwieldy.

That changed last year when the County Council amended the law to allow road crews to pick up illegal signs on sight. The change, and a $168,000 earmark in the 2008 budget, helped launch a permanent sign- removal program.

County road crews are now on their fourth countywide sweep and still collecting thousands of signs. If enforcement had been the rule rather than the exception, businesses would have adapted long ago – and Pierce County’s roadways would look a lot neater today.

That’s not to say that government shouldn’t learn from experience. Critics argue that county road crews have been overzealous, taking signs that stray inches onto public easements. Road crews have a better feel for where rights-of-way start than the average property or business owner. Sometimes, only a surveyor can really say for sure.

The County Council would answer that concern with a proposal to allow a limited number of signs to remain in public rights-of-way provided they are adjacent to the business or home they are advertising.

It’s a common-sense solution that would preserve the county’s ability to rid unincorporated areas of most roadside clutter. It doesn’t go as far as some would like in opening public property for free advertising, but Pierce County knows all too well where that path leads.