Council's OK of digital billboards angers Tolleson residents

Tolleson City Council last week approved an ordinance amendment that allows digital billboards in the city despite opposition from residents.

On Sept. 9, the Council held a public hearing on the billboard issue, and residents packed the meeting in opposition to it. In that hearing, billboard and business interests spoke in favor of the billboards. A Tolleson ordinance bans billboards, but the Council-approved amendment allows two digital billboards, each with two faces.

Mayor Adolfo Gámez said that as elected officials the council has to look at the "entire picture."

"I think it's something that brings Tolleson to age," Gámez said of the digital billboards. "I think it also helps businesses in the community. It's something I think people don't really understand the impact it can have in the community. I understand the concerns, but I think we've gotten the full picture of how this can help the community."

The mayor said the billboards will generate revenue at a time the city badly needs it. The city will be paid $3,000 a month for each billboard.

Planning and Zoning Commissioner Steven Kilberg said digital billboards add no value to the city.

"I think they (Council members) have prostituted the city of Tolleson to businesses," Kilberg said. "They've sold it to warehouses, and they're selling it now to digital billboards. They've basically pandered to businesses to the detriment of the city."

The mayor attempted to change the amendment to increase the billboard limit to four. But Councilman Juan Rodriguez urged caution, arguing that four billboards with eight faces on a 2-mile stretch of Interstate 10 were too many billboards.

Chris Schmaltz, the city's attorney, told the Council it can bring the ordinance back in the future and increase the number of billboards allowed.

City Manager Reyes Medrano Jr. recommended that the council approve more than two billboards, noting that the Council must approve a use permit for each billboard.

"Regardless of how many signs you authorize today, whether it's two or 10 or 15, you still have the control," Medrano said. "You can allow one and not allow any more. You don't have to do any. You can have a change of heart, the majority of you, and say 'We've decided we're not going to do it,' because there are no current rights. No billboards are allowable today.

"The only thing from that perspective is we would confidently recommend exceeding the two, whether you use three or four, just to allow us to be able to move quicker in the event that it would be a deal breaker on one of our larger parcels along the freeway," Medrano added.

Kilberg noted that the Planning and Zoning Commission attempted to postpone the approval of the billboard issue until the Federal Highway Administration completed a safety study.

But Schmaltz intervened and told the commission it could not postpone its recommendation, but rather it was required to send the amendment to the Council.

So the commission voted to recommend denial of the billboard approval.

"I'm disappointed that the City Council voted against the recommendation of Planning and Zoning," Kilberg said.

Because the Council approved the billboards, he said that if the federal study confirms the billboards are unsafe, Tolleson's billboards will be grandfathered, and therefore, not subject to removal.

The city won't have to wait long to consider those two digital billboards.

In a letter dated Sept. 17, 2008, Tom Tait with Phoenix-based Tait Development Inc. sent a letter to Medrano informing him that his company had an agreement with American Outdoor Advertising to lease the company two sign locations, one on each side of Interstate 10 between 91st Avenue and 95th Avenue.