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Grand Jury Releases Findings On Billboard Company's Illegal Tree Cutting Permits

In June 2009, Citizens for a Scenic Florida received an anonymous letter reporting that acres of trees were being cut down along I-10 and other state roads in the Panhandle without approved vegetation management plans or associated mitigation fees.  As it turned out, more than 2000 trees were "illegally removed" from state right-of-way along I-10 and other roads in the Panhandle.  The letter indicated that the trees were removed by Bill Salter Advertising Co. in order to create view zones for the company's billboards.  The letter also suggested that Salter Advertising had used the influence of then State Representative Greg Evers to broker a deal with FDOT leadership and that an FDOT employee had been ordered by the FDOT District Director of Operations James Rodgers to let Salter Advertising "do whatever they want."  In response to public records requests by Citizens for a Scenic Florida and the St. Pete Times, no documents provided by FDOT confirmed any communications on the subject between then Representative Evers, then FDOT Secretary Stephanie Kopelousos, and then FDOT Deputy Secretary Kevin Thibault.  In response to a public records request made in 2010 (by a citizen in St. Petersburg) for all emails to and from Secretary Kopelousos for a given period, among the thousands of documents provided by FDOT were emails revealing such communication between Evers, Kopelousos and Thibault. Other emails turned up later when the original records requests were repeated verbatim in 2011. This information was forwarded to the State Attorney for the Second Judicial Circuit and subsequently reviewed by a Grand Jury. The Grand Jury called it a debacle.

*   Grand Jury Presentment (report)

*   Grand Jury Presentment Attachments

*   Citizens for a Scenic Florida Press Release

*   Citizens for a Scenic Florida letter to Governor Scott

*   Citizens for a Scenic Florida letter to FDOT Secretary

Emails Show Billboard Group Wrote Bill, Told Senator What to Say About Cutting Trees

New Details Emerge

"State Sen. Greg Evers has admitted in the past that a lobbying group representing the billboard industry helped craft legislation he filed last legislative session. The bill made it easier and cheaper for companies to put up billboards. He filed it 'at the request of the [Florida Outdoor Advertising Association],' he said during an interview last month. 'I was doing the people’s work, putting folks back to work, as our governor says.'

Now, emails between the association and Evers’ staff obtained by the Times-Union in a public records request show the association provided Evers more than a helping hand. The group wrote the bill and provided the Crestview Republican with talking points used to pitch the legislation to other lawmakers.

Evers is part of a grand jury investigation looking at how billboard company Bill Salter Advertising was granted permits to cut 2,094 state-owned trees without paying required fees or filing needed mitigation plans. Earlier this year, the Times-Union reported that Evers reached out to then-Transportation Secretary Stephanie Kopelousos, who is now Clay County manager, on Salter’s behalf.

Evers, Kopelousos, and Salter officials, among others, have already given testimony as part of the probe.

In a March 14 email, association president Charlotte Brand Audie sent changes to Evers’ bill that lengthened it from two to 12 pages.

'The amendment includes the changes we previously discussed with Senator Evers regarding vegetation management at outdoor advertising signs,”' she wrote. 'We will prepare talking points … for the Senator to reference and get them to you tomorrow.'

Brand Audie did not return requests seeking comment.

The changes were put in after the bill’s first committee stop and added provisions that allowed companies to choose either to compile a blueprint — known as a vegetation management plan — showing how they will replace trees that are cut, pay fees to the state, or do some combination of the two. Under current law, both the plan and fees are required.

The changes also lowered from two to one the number of older — or non-conforming — signs a company has to give up when it receives a new permit. The original bill made no mention of loosening the requirements for putting up billboards.

Two days after sending the association-authored amendment, Brand Audie sent a one-page list of talking points to help Evers sell the bill during the committee process, emails show. They made no mention of loosening state billboard regulations.

In a two-pronged approach to help ensure passage of the changes, the language was also slipped into a much larger transportation bill on March 28, emails show. That bill also did not pass..."
Matt Dixon, Florida Times-Union

Latest News

Florida: Lamar employee alleges he was ordered to poison trees

Whistleblower law suit filed

"He worked for Florida’s largest billboard company. His job, he says, was poisoning trees that block signs. Robert Barnhart was let go last month. On September 7th, he filed a whistle-blower lawsuit in Federal Court. A tree on Capital Circle near Tom Brown Park in Tallahassee is dying because Robert Barnhart poisoned it. According to a complaint he filed in federal court, a supervisor at his job with Lamar Advertising, told him to poison trees blocking billboards.'Right above that branch is where we drilled the hole,' said Barnhart. Barnhart says he climbed the tree, drilled a hole above this branch and poured in poison.

'It’s definitely dying. It’s a result of the chemical. The reason why it was poisoned is because it’s in the way of the billboard,' said Barnhart. The tree should look like the tree right next to it, green and full of life, but all of the leaves have fallen off and pieces of bark are all along the ground. Soon, the city will come chop it down. Barnhart filed a lawsuit against Lamar in Federal Court Wednesday. The suit claims Barnhart was given a machete, told to hack at the root system, and then pour poison on the cut. 'I was driven around the day before and showed the locations to poison and told, come in an unmarked truck, don’t wear a Lamar logo, wear dust mask and kitchen gloves and poison the trees,' said Barnhart. Killing large trees without a permit is a felony. In this written complain Barnhart told the company he want nothing to do with killing trees...

Barnhart's former boss Danny Funderburgh...says he never received a complaint from Barnhart and he's still actually on the payroll. As for their policy regarding trees that block signs, Funderburgh said 'We do not have a policy to kill trees or remove any trees. Lamar Advertising follows city and state regulations."
Whitney Ray -- WCTV, Tallahasee

West Miami

Photo: ScenicMiamiDade.com

West Miami is a tiny city of approximately 6,000 residents. The City of West Miami, along with more than 30 other municipalities, exists within Miami-Dade County. Since approximately 1984, in order to establish a "community-wide" visual aesthetic, Miami-Dade County has had a Sign Code which, among other features, does not allow digital billboards anywhere in the County.

West Miami’s city council was looking for additional revenue in these tough times and it recently adopted an ordinance that allows billboards including digitals.

The residents of City of West Miami decided to fight this. Led by Leticia Vega, Ph.D with help from Scenic Miami, Inc. and Scenic Miami-Dade County, Inc. the residents prepared and filed papers to commence referendum proceedings to accomplish the wholesale repeal of the West Miami ordinance that had "allowed" the digital billboards.

The City Commission of the City of West Miami, responding to the residents, announced that it will repeal the flawed ordinance and scheduled the first hearing to accomplish that goal as quickly as it could.

Now the residents just have to figure out how to take down the one billboard that was slipped in while the ordinance was (apparently illegally) in place during the course of the proceedings. GOOD job to our friends in West Miami and at Scenic Miami-Dade County.
ScenicMiamiDade.org