Evil Billboard Special Interest Crushed - Community Saved

The Osceola News Gazette takes over the baton of "we missed-the-point" from this week's earlier missed-the-point sprinter, the Orlando Sentinel. We are not sure if they do not check the articles to see if they actually make sense, or if they are really just that out of touch with the real issues that face our community, but today's editorial proves that they need to log into Monster.com to see if there is some new writing talent available.

Today their editorial heralds the triumphs of the county commission for standing up to the evil and powerful billboard cartels who have wrought havoc on our community. They were able to wield their special powers to strike down 3 (3 can be a big number) proposed billboards. According to the News Gazette, "Had the County Commission allowed these large signs, they would have been allowing visual blight. We have enough areas in the county and in our cities already where street graphics look trashy. The visual clutter and unsightliness of billboards – which should be limited to commercial or industrial zoned areas if allowed at all – would have detracted from the look of Poinciana Boulevard."

So the News Gazette thinks it is good to completely kill advertising opportunities for the business community? Why give businesses an opportunity to grow and expand by attracting business using advertising such as billboards especially in a bad economy? "Smart - Business - Growth" would be one reason we believe. This is probably also a good time to point out that all the foreclosed signs that are up in our community provide more of a visual blight than 3 billboards will ever accomplish. We find the editorial of the News Gazette painting the picture of the billboard companies as some evil empire is somewhat odd considering that more advertising outlets means less advertising revenue for the Gazette. And to attack a competitor's business so publicly with words like 'trashy' is just 'trashy'.

The real problem of the wasted space used by this editorial, elected officials, and some candidates who are talking about billboards, is that it means they are not talking about the real issues and struggles that many in our community are facing right now. They are wasting time debating sign ordinances and issues that will not fix the problems created by the bad decisions leading up to the mess we are all now left to fix. To applaud the commission for standing up against a billboard company when they allow developers to build anything, anywhere, anytime, seems less than laudable. Not one of the WayneWho staffers could find a news article on the oversupply of billboard signage creating a massive downturn in our economy, or that hundreds of thousands of people have lost their homes because the billboard signage bubble burst. Maybe it is time for the Osceola News Gazette and our elected officials to figure out the true enemies who threaten our "Quality of Life." The WayneWho staff would rank the increased amount of gang activity and gang graffiti as bigger issues than 3 billboards.