THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 29, 1996 TAG: 9605290403
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 61 lines
A proposed electronic billboard that would have been erected across from St. Paul's Church and which has sparked angry rhetoric in the past was voted down by the City Council Tuesday night.
The council rejected, 4-3, the proposal by Richard James, a Norfolk detective, to build an electronic sign similar to the one in front of Scope that would flash out public and commercial messages to passers-by.
Under the proposal, James would have built the sign on city land in exchange for allowing the city to broadcast public-service messages half the time. James would make money by selling advertising.
The sign would have been up to 12 feet high with a display area of 100 square feet on each side.
James had earlier proposed erecting his sign on Waterside Drive.
The final site was at the northwest corner of St. Paul's Boulevard and Market Street, across from the 250-year-old brick church and near the principal entrance to the planned MacArthur Center Mall.
The decision to kill the project ends more than a year of angry division on the council, which split over the merits of the proposal and the political and social issues surrounding it.
Councilman Paul R. Riddick, who led the campaign to erect the sign, said the city's resistance to the proposal was an example of its resistance to new blood and anyone who wasn't well-connected.
After a parade of speakers against the sign, Riddick sarcastically urged the protesters ``to sit back in your finely manicured lawns and tree-lined streets,'' while people who live in less-privileged surroundings fight for economic opportunity.
``I see this as a young man who is not well-connected, not represented by a powerful group or law firm, who is being denied his dream,'' Riddick said, ``a dream that wouldn't hurt you one bit.''
Councilman Mason C. Andrews, who led the campaign against the sign, has said approving it would be ignoring the advice of design professionals who are crafting the look of downtown.
``People who care about the city, and whose record is that of caring, may reach different opinions,'' Andrews said Tuesday night.
The council's rejection pulled the rug from under James, who a year ago was almost assured passage of his proposal when the council, after divisive debate and also on a 4-3 vote, passed a new city law to allow such signs, with his project in mind.
But Councilman W. Randy Wright, who supported the new law a year ago, voted against the project Tuesday. He gave no explanation.
A steady stream of members of garden clubs and other preservers of the city's appearance spoke against the proposal Tuesday.
``This is the modern equivalent of the old-fashioned billboard that were such a scar on the landscape,'' said Peggy Twohy of Ghent.
Twohy and other opponents said a location directly across the street from the city's oldest historic structure - the brick St. Paul's Church - was not appropriate. But Riddick said other nearby buildings are hardly historic.
``St. Paul's is surrounded by a jail, a school board and the MacArthur Center,'' Riddick said. ``None of them have any distinguishing architectural features.''
The Design Review Board and The Planning Commission both opposed the concept of an electronic sign downtown.
KEYWORDS: NORFOLK CITY COUNCIL ELECTRONIC SIGN BILLBOARD by CNB