N.C. Senate Agrees to Billboard Law Compromise

According to the Raleigh N&O, the environmentalists caved ... and there is therefore a compromise billboard-buyout law that has passed the N.C. Senate, at least, and will be (or has already been) taken up by the N.C. House, which will:
 
"...give local governments the option of paying to move a billboard to a comparable site. If the owner and the government can't agree on a site, the matter would go to binding arbitration.  The government also could choose to pay the owner to take the sign down. If they can't agree on a price, the government could ask a Superior Court judge to set one."
 
There's lots of unexplored consequences to a compromise like this one, and we fear the worst (naturally -- we're NOT comatose!), but this is what we got, and it may or may not be an improvement over what the industry engineered for itself before Gov. Easley vetoed it.
 
And maybe the industry is just struttin' rather than admit they took a hit, but this is what their spokesman is saying: "It's going to accomplish what we set out to do," said Mark Moyer, president of Fairway Outdoor Advertising, based in Augusta, Ga. "The whole purpose of this is to make us whole."
 
Molly Diggins, director of the N.C. Sierra Club, said the new bill is still a setback for local governments and environmentalists, but not as bad as the previous one. "I think the governor's veto kept the legislature from giving away the store," she said.
 
The legislators who were busiest at "giving away the store," incidentally -- and we regret having to report this -- were mainly Democrats ... with the gleeful support of low-energy Republicans like Gene Wilson.  Just take a look at the preliminary list of which N.C. legislators got the biggest donations from the billboard industry this year.
 
My mama always said, "Look out for the man who can't be embarrassed!