Chairperson Graves and Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to provide written testimony regarding the impact of the Highway Beautification Act (HBA) on small businesses in rural America.

Scenic Missouri is a statewide, non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and enhancing the scenic beauty of Missouri. Scenic Missouri formed in 1994, primarily in response to what our founders perceived to be a growing problem with billboards in both urban and rural areas, not just with respect to their numbers but their size, height, intrusiveness, and negative effect on traffic safety, tourism and economic development.

Billboards in our beautiful state were no longer the fairly small (250 sq. ft. or less) signs framed with latticework and landscaping that we grew up with, advertising the local insurance agent or hometown restaurant and used while playing the "alphabet game" on family vacations. Suddenly, they were gigantic, 100’ high, 800 – 1,200 sq. ft. monstrosities advertising everything from gambling boats to liquor and sex clubs. They

were popping up along our rural highways like ten-story toadstools on a warm spring day, wiping out our cherished views of Missouri’s beautiful, pastoral countryside. They were (and are) everywhere.

In fact, we can now boast that along the entire 250 miles of I-70 in Missouri, travelers rarely have a billboard-free view of the state, there being only one three-mile stretch where at least one billboard is not visible. More often than not, there is one every five hundred feet, towering over native oaks (if they haven’t been clear-cut to improve the site line), historic farmhouses, historic and suburban neighborhoods, parks and scenic Ozark hills and river valleys. On average, I-70 in Missouri has three times as many billboards per mile as the other states traversed by this, the first of our nation’s great Interstate Highways. Missouri has nineteen times as many billboards per mile on I-70 as Colorado (see attachment 1).

Having set the stage, I would like to now provide Scenic Missouri’s perspective in the following areas: 1) public opinion, 2) the November, 2000 state wide vote on billboards in Missouri, 3) small rural businesses and billboards and 4) the need to review the HBA in its entirety.

Public Opinion

Attached is a summary of three separate, independently conducted scientific public opinion polls conducted in Missouri between 1994 and 2000 (attachment 2). As you can see, strong majorities of Missourians believe that we have too many billboards in Missouri, prefer official highway signs and other sources of traveler information over commercial billboards, believe that local governments should have the right to prohibit and even remove billboards, and oppose (80%) the current policy of allowing billboard companies to destroy trees and other vegetation on highway rights of way to improve billboard visibility. Although such opinions were somewhat stronger in urban versus rural areas, in most rural areas, majorities agreed.

One additional poll not summarized on the attachment found strong support for prohibiting new billboards, allowing local control and stopping tree removal. This poll is referenced in the section below.

Proposition A – The November 2000 Statewide Vote on Billboards

In the general election held on November 7, 2000 in Missouri, 1,074,895 Missourians (49% of those voting), voted to a) prohibit the construction of new billboards on all highways in Missouri where billboards are regulated by the HBA, b) declare existing billboards to be "non conforming land uses" subject to removal under certain circumstances, c) clarify the right in state law of cities and counties to fully regulate billboards, and d) repeal the section in the state law permitting billboard companies to destroy trees on public highway rights of ways.

The measure, known as Proposition A, was favored in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch tracking poll conducted just prior to election day by a margin of 55%-40%, even after several weeks of television advertising by the billboard industry falsely suggesting that the measure would "cost Missourians millions in scarce highway construction funds." The false advertising campaign was massively increased the week before the election, causing enough voter doubt that the measure was narrowly defeated.

The primary reason for providing the above information regarding public opinion data and the Proposition A vote, is to demonstrate the very strong support in Missouri for limiting billboards. Missourians cherish their scenic and rural heritage. They are smart enough to avail themselves of the small businesses and traveler services they require without the help of so many billboards. Having said that, I believe, and believe most Missourians believe, that billboards per se are not the problem. The problem is their number, size, location in inappropriate areas and use to promote marginal and, at times, offensive products. If we could go back to the days of a few small billboards advertising helpful products and services, we would not see the public outrage in Missouri we see today.

Small Rural Businesses and Billboards

It should be pointed out that Proposition A won in twelve counties and the City of St. Louis. Several of these counties, Boone, Christian, Clay, Platte, Warren, Franklin, Jefferson and Osage, while still mainly rural in character, happen to be some of the fastest growing and economically vibrant areas in Missouri. Small businesses are thriving in these areas. Yet their citizens supported the proposition (Proposition A) that would have stopped billboard proliferation and ultimately drastically reduced the number of billboards in Missouri.

The fact is that most small rural businesses seldom use commercial billboards due to their high cost and general ineffectiveness. Instead, major franchise chains and tourist destinations more typically use billboards, as if without billboards travelers would stop eating Big Macs, sleeping in motels, buying gasoline and going to the Lake of the Ozarks or Silver Dollar City. Billboards are used because they are available to use. In states without billboards (Vermont, Maine, Alaska and Hawaii), and the twenty or more states with hardly any billboards compared to Missouri (e.g., Colorado, Oregon, Kentucky, Virginia, New York, Iowa and Washington), small rural businesses and tourism thrive. Travelers find what they need by using the information sources opinion polls say they largely prefer - the Internet, official highway signs, travel agents, word of mouth and road maps.

Admittedly, some small businesses, especially ones located in very rural and out-of-the-way areas, have come to depend in part on billboards to guide customers to them. One such small business is House of Os, a bed and breakfast owned by Sarah Kothe and located some 2.3 miles off Highway 5 in rural Chariton County, Missouri. Mrs. Kothe testified before the Subcommittee on May 15, 2003 that the Missouri Department of Transportation made her remove an eight square foot directional sign she had placed with permission on a neighbor’s property adjacent to the highway. She claims that her business has suffered. I believe her.

It is ironic that the Highway Beautification Act does not allow Mrs. Kothe to place an eight square foot directional sign next to the highway - yet permits multi-billion dollar outdoor advertising mega-corporations to erect 100 foot high, 1,200 sq. ft. billboards, the size of most two bedroom apartments and many homes, to advertise other multi-billion dollar mega corporations often hawking booze, gambling boats and sex clubs. And under the Highway Beautification Act they can do so adjacent to any type of road on the National Highway System, including four (or more) lane divided interstates and two lane rural primary roads, all built and maintained with public dollars. Under the HBA, billboard companies make massive profits by, in effect, using the public’s property without compensating the public for its use.

Need for Review (and Reform) of the Highway Beautification Act

If the HBA encourages the scenario described in the above paragraph, and I assure the Committee that it does, where is the fairness in this law? How is it rational? How is it in the public interest? How on earth does it meet its stated goal "to protect the public investment….to promote the safety and recreational value of public travel, and to preserve natural beauty?" (Italics added.) Clearly, it is not fair, it is not rational, it is not in the public interest and it does not fulfill its stated goal.