By Tony McVeigh
Frankfort, KY – A Senate committee in Frankfort has handed Kentucky's billboard industry an initial victory in a longstanding battle. The Transportation Committee voted unanimously to let the industry come onto public rights-of-way to cut down trees and vegetation blocking private signs. Leigh Ann Thacker speaks for the industry.
"We've compromised over the years to the point where it's really one of the most reasonable pieces of legislation that's out there. I mean, they're willing to get a permit, they're willing to pay for it, they're willing to take an arborist with them to do the actual trimming, not clear-cutting. They've offered to do replacement vegetation for everything they trim down. They've offered to replace."
But environmentalists who testified before the vote say private companies have no inherit right to come onto public rights-of-way to remove vegetation blocking private billboards. The bill now goes to the Senate floor, where it passed in previous years, only to die in the House.