EDITORIAL: Pass House bill on outdoor signs – Rapid City Journal

Rapid City voters in 2011 approved an initiated measure that prohibited new electronic billboards in the city with more than 66 percent of the vote.

The South Dakota House Transportation Committee holds a hearing today on a bill that would validate what Rapid City voters approved at the ballot box. House Bill 1200 changes state law to allow local authorities to regulate and control off-premise signs within their jurisdictions while prohibiting them from regulating on-premise signage.

Meanwhile, the Senate Transportation Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday on a competing bill, Senate Bill 157, which would prohibit local authorities to regulate outdoor advertising and any advertising technology (electronic billboards, for instance) within their jurisdictions.

The bills take opposite positions on a key issue in Rapid City and the Black Hills: billboard proliferation and electronic billboards. Should local governments be able to regulate and control outdoor advertising or not? Secondly, should local governments be able to ban electronic billboards?

HB 1200’s sponsor, Rep. Mark Kirkeby, R-Rapid City, said at Saturday’s crackerbarrel in Rapid City that SB 157 was being promoted by Daktronics, the Brookings-based electronic sign maker, and all of its sponsors are from East River. Local governments should be able to regulate billboards, Kirkeby said.

Rapid City has long been a battleground in the effort to reduce the number and size of billboards within city limits. Rapid City voters made their sentiments known by passing a measure giving the city council and Rapid City government the authority to regulate and control all manner of off-premise outdoor advertising.

The state Legislature should not undo what Rapid City voters say they want: local control of outdoor advertising.

Lawmakers should reject SB 157 and pass HB 1200 to put control of billboard advertising in the hands of local authorities.