Resolved for Now: Council Reins in Digital Signs
Thanks for everyone's support.
Not only did the City Council not cave in to the OASIS company, but Councilwoman Connie
Hudson upped the distance from a sign to a residence to 500 feet.
The OASIS Company which attempt to break our billboard-regulating law by attaching signs to containers, vowed to return and try again.
Read the full article in the Mobile Register.
Mike Dow's Letter to the City Council Regarding OASIS
Subject: Public Safety my foot. This is an I.Q. test about proliferation
of signs (cracking our ordinace) and advertising revenue.
My respected friends and former colleagues,
I have been informed that a signage ordinance amendment is being considered for a company called Oasis, Inc. this Wednesday that if passed will dismantle all of the hard work that former Mayor Arthur Outlaw, myself and our hard working City Council Members accomplished. Teko Wiseman and Bob Haskins Keep Mobile Beautiful, the hard working City Zoning Department and a very large number of thinking and caring citizens worked long and hard to advise elected officials and guide us in the planning and implementation of our current signage ordinance. We have a modern and model ordinance with years of disciplined hard work behind it and we need to keep it intact. It actually needs to be tightened up (to prevent such grievances as the huge ugly new electronic sign at the loop strip center).
Please tell me that the City Council is not considering dismantling our hard fought sign ordinance allowing unlimited digital signage up to 15' tall with no width boundaries (a billboard without poles), 400 ft apart, 250 ft from a residence disguised as a "Public Safety Pod??" for emergency messages with emergency rations?? stored inside. What a joke the sign industry has cooked up for our citizens to eat. This will do our city much visual damage and is in and of itself a perfect storm emergency.
Former Mayor Arthur Outlaw and his city council started our current signage ordinance design process and I and my administration (the same council) worked from there to put the initial sign ordinance in place in the early 1990's. At the council meeting for passage an out of town expert for the sign industry presented to myself and the council "that the taller and larger a billboard the more business one received". We laughed so hard he could not finish his silly speech. We need to laugh much harder this time. This is a huge and serious matter.
I was told that these experts now say these ugly "signs/pods must first and foremost serve a compelling public service need". Of course how can anyone be against our police, fire and emergency management. What a joke. Public safety my foot. This is an I.Q. test about the proliferation of digital billboards without poles disguised a public service. The only compelling public service is to say no to OASIS Inc. and not have this visual damage unleashed on our environment.
We have done so many right things to attract to improve our city and attract the investment of global enterprise represented by ThyssenKrupp and IPSCO Steel, EADS/Airbus and Northrop Grumman, Austal and General Dynamics, world class traders and shippers attracted to our new deep water container port located on the end of Brookley Airfield's 2 mile wide bodied runway. We did many right things to attract the Cruise Ship Industry and a dynamic private sector investment that is incubated and now taking place in our revitalized historic downtown. We have new and renovated office towers, new competitive 4 star and mid market hotels, new art, science, history, Mardi Gras museums and host major block buster events. When added to our traditional Bellingrath Gardens and our Battleship Park attractions we are leveraging a larger paying tourism industry. Let's keep doing right things. Let's Keep Mobile beautiful for our families and visitors and continue to limit those ugly electronic "digital" billboards for our growing city. Right things are right things.
Actually, I have so much trust and confidence in each of you and your track record of fiduciary care and concern for our city that I told those informing me that busting this ordinance was a bad dream and was not going to happen. Several of you were not in office when we fought and won this hard fight in the early 1990's. I wanted to share with you my thoughts. I love this city and care for its citizens as I know each of you do.
I trust and anticipate you will have the care and courage to trash this "amendment by the signage industry" and let our City Zoning Department carefully deal with a few well thought out changes needed for the digital signage world. A world of signage that is increasingly flashing, revolving and visually whacking at us as we drive about. I thank you for all that you do for Mobile. I miss each of you.
As always respectfully yours,
Mike Dow, citizen
OASIS - In Their Own Words
Below from a Lexington Venture Club publication in 2007 focusing on businesses founded or growing in 2006:
OASIS: Outdoor Advertising Storage and Integrated Systems
introducing a new category of outdoor media
OASIS is launching a next generation Outdoor Advertising company that will
introduce a new category of outdoor media to meet the burgeoning demand
of advertisers for more outdoor media exposure at a time when new typical
outdoor locations are becoming harder and harder to attain.
Utilizing storage modules as the vehicle to place attractive, state-of-the-art advertising displays onto retail and commercial sites will provide a new category of outdoor advertising that will be in high demand. OASIS has developed and patented a business methodology which will facilitate the placement of these combination storage/advertisement modules onto thousands of retail and commercial locations. To initially rollout the business and gain traction, OASIS has developed a disaster relief Program and partnered with various Emergency Planning agencies whereby OASIS provides free storage space to pre-stage disaster commodities into communities in exchange for the assistance Emergency Planning agencies at each community level.
Joe Montgomery (859) 509-3972 joem@OASISadgroup.com
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