Commentary: You can do something

The letter from Ernie Ryan, an East Court Street neighborhood resident, (page 6) is typical of how they feel about it. After they find out that RaiLease, a subsidiary of Grand Trunk Western Railroad, plans to build a second billboard at Dort and Longway and can legally build as many similar billboards as they want between Dort and Gilkey Creek, most of them reach a level of outrage that produces words we do not use in this publication.

We were not listening in when Ryan contacted the RaiLease official he quotes. If the official feels Ryan failed to understand or misquoted him, we will be happy to publish in a future issue what the official thinks he said or meant. But for the moment, assume that Ryan's letter accurately reflects what the official said.

According to Ryan's account, the official, Larry Sidman, basically said that he was surprised that anyone objected to the billboard and that if he had known neighborhood residents were opposed to the billboard before he made such a large financial investment in it, he might not have built the sign.

Is Sidman stupid, or does he think Ryan and his neighbors are stupid?

No one had a chance to tell railroad officials what they thought about the billboards before the construction began because railroad officials made no effort to tell anyone what they planned to do until they were asked — long after construction began.

More importantly, anyone with normal intelligence should have known what the reaction would be without having to do a survey.

Even if Sidman would not object to someone building mega-billboards in his neighborhood (which we doubt), he should have known that Flint residents would be outraged if a major entryway to Flint's College and Cultural Center and some of Flint's most important neighborhoods was polluted by massive billboards.

Billboard industry representatives, despite expensive lobbying campaigns and a law suit or two, have been unable to get the Flint City Council to relax Flint's strong sign ordinance — simply because council members know that Flint residents would not put up with it. The section banning most billboards within 600 feet of the expressway has been a prime target of the sign industry, yet it has remained unchanged.

How could officials of a business operating in Flint think that a city which prohibits most billboards near expressways would welcome the same signs on the entryway to it's Cultural Center — even if billboards in their neighborhood would not offend the officials' aesthetic sensibilities?

It is impossible to believe. Obviously, they feel that the profits from billboards advertising tobacco, liquor, adult entertainment, fast food restaurants and any other industry with the money to advertise is enough to put up with a few irate calls from residents who are worried about the the aesthetic quality of their city, the potential loss in the value of their property and their lack of control over the persuasive images of commercial products and services which their children are exposed to.

What can you do?

Read Ryan's letter. He has a lot of good ideas.

Call or write the railroad officials, your councilman, the mayor, your county commissioner and other officials and tell them what you think about the situation.

Get together with your neighbors and form an ad hoc committee to do whatever is necessary to get rid of the billboard being built and prevent additional billboards from being built.

If you are a member of an area community group, such as the College and Cultural Neighborhood Association, the Lewis-Longway Neighborhood Association, the Lapeer Street Block Club Association, the Pierce School Community Council, the Olde East Side Neighbors, the Top of the Hill Gang or the Third District Democratic Club, discuss the issue and what your group can do about the situation. Ask the city council to rezone the north side of Longway to prevent billboards or other commercial uses and to change the city code to make non-point-of-sale billboards a special regulated use with restrictions on them similar to those placed on the locations of "adult" entertainment, massage parlors and pawn shop businesses.

Write and tell us what you think about the situation so that we can share your thoughts with the 20,000 or so people who regularly read this publication.

Finally, do not give up. No matter what the railroad officials and the politicians say, the problem can be solved.

GPC