[Peace-discuss] Billboards and Free Speech

[John W.]

At 05:10 PM 9/24/2007, Jan & Durl Kruse wrote:

>>Billboards and Free Speech:
>><http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zpXLKAyESM&mode=related&search=>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zpXLKAyESM&mode=related&search= 
>>
>>
>>Urbana reconsidering last year's ordinance on billboards
>>By Mike Monson
>>
>>Monday September 24, 2007
>>
>>URBANA – A lawsuit filed against the city of Urbana by Adams Outdoor 
>>Advertising is prompting city officials to propose revising an ordinance 
>>that is barely a year old.
>>
>>Adams owns all 32 billboard structures, with 64 billboard faces, in the 
>>city of Urbana. The company filed suit in Champaign County Circuit Court 
>>this past November, asking for relief from the city's new billboard 
>>ordinance, which was approved by the city council in June 2006.
>>
>>In the suit, Adams objected to the fact that to get a new billboard 
>>requires the company to get a special use permit approved by the city 
>>council and reviewed by the plan commission. Adams contended that 
>>requiring a special use permit was an abridgment on its First Amendment 
>>rights to free speech and failed to include basic due process protections.


If the permission granted or denied is based in any way on the CONTENT of 
the advertising, other than probably obscenity, Adams is absolutely 
right.  However, the city can impose what are called "time, place, and 
manner" restrictions on the billboards.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20070924/f0294466/attachment.html