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California senate blocks digital billboards

June 10, 2007

San Francisco Chronicle: A controversial measure to allow some billboards along highways to be replaced with large digital advertising displays has been blocked by Senate leader Don Perata, who six years ago helped the Oakland Coliseum erect the same type of signage. The billboard legislation by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, easily cleared the Assembly on May 17. Two weeks later, Perata took the unusual move of sending Ma a letter saying he would keep the bill in the Senate Rules Committee, which he controls.

"I have received many calls and written communications from residents concerned about a proliferation of big screen electronic billboards. Some cited driver safety. Others cite a gratuitous commercial intrusion into public space," Perata's letter says.

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