Sign problems stress highway businesses

WILLOW -- Parks Highway business owners were rankled recently when a state official came by and tore down several business, real estate and even garage sale signs, allegedly threatening business owners who dared to ask questions.

"We had customers … and he came in with two pickups, lights flashing, like it was a drug raid," said Willow business owner Bruce Berget, who related that the state worker had bragged about "putting the fear of God" into other business owners who had signs in the state right of way and made pointed comments about Berget's wife -- comments, Berget said, that nearly caused him to resort to physical violence.

Berget was just one of

several business owners in the area who gathered Friday to discuss problems with placing signs announcing their business within a sometimes meandering state right of way area -- and with a particular state worker. They voiced their frustrations to Wasilla-area Republican Senator Lyda Green, and to John MacKinnon and Mike Scott, the Department of Transportation's deputy commissioner and central region director.

Berget and other business owners said they were hopeful MacKinnon and Scott could help them understand the best way to legally advertise their businesses, many of which are tourism-related.

Green said this was not the first time businesses along Alaska's highways had requested a change to DOT regulations concerning signs in the right of way.

"Several years ago, we were attempting to do some work to improve the signage issue," Green said, "and make what was previously regulation into legislation."

The basic points of her effort were to allow 18-inch-by-90-inch tourist-oriented directional signs on private land adjacent to public right-of-ways. The landowner would need to give permission, and the signs would have been held to Federal Highway Administration-approved standards.

"We learned that there are a lot of places in Alaska where there is no right-of-way," Green said. "We tried to make allowances for dealing with private property owners so they could have a TOD (tourist-oriented directional) sign on what would normally have been a state right of way … When your property is not on the highway or beyond the highway, you're not really allowed signage."

Her points were picked up by groups who felt allowing additional roadside signs -- especially for pay on private property -- would open the door to billboards, which, they said, would destroy the pristine character of Alaska's highways.

"It became a nightmare, and it became a political campaign, and it became a fundraiser for ACE," Green said, referring to the Alaska Center for the Environment, who dubbed Green the "Billboard Queen" for her stance on signage. Although Green's bill passed by wide margins in both the House and Senate, it was vetoed by then-governor Tony Knowles. The Legislature overrode the veto, but a citizen's initiative that banned billboards across the state passed with nearly 72 percent of Alaskans voting in favor of the ban, quashing the legislation. The result of the fiasco, Green said, was that regulations regarding signs became more restrictive than they were previously.

As an alternative to placing business signs within the state right of way, the TODS, or Tourist Oriented Directional Sign, program was developed in 1993. Businesses must be able to prove that 25 percent of their business comes directly from tourism and meet several other qualifications to apply for a TOD sign. They also must submit a $100 nonrefundable application fee, and then pay $400 if they are selected for placement. It costs $300 to renew, although information about how often businesses must renew was not readily available through the state's online administrative codes. Green told the group assembled in Willow that sometimes TODS just weren't enough.

"TOD signage does not adequately portray 'Wildflower Hollow, homemade, custom-made gifts," Green said, "so you don't get the point across."

The result, the business owners gathered said, is that people skirt the law and put their signs on vehicles or wheels so they can be moved out of the right of way when necessary, or simply move the signs and call their neighbors to warn them to do the same whenever a DOT right of way agent passes through.

"It's tradition out here -- as soon as the guy goes away, you put the sign back up," Berget said. "It makes scofflaws of all of us."

Other Willow and Talkeetna-area business owners shared their questions about signage, which were noted by MacKinnon and Scott.

Both MacKinnon and Scott said signage issues are hot topics around the state. Scott said he's been in his office two weeks and has received three requests appealing a decision regarding TODS. He assured those present that appeals of decisions such as whether or not to grant a TODS are not handled by the same person who makes the original denial. Six to seven people, randomly selected from outside the division, consider the appeal, he said.

Green's legislative aide, Janey Wineinger, said the issue isn't just being felt along the upper Parks Highway. MacKinnon and Green, she said, had meetings scheduled near Wasilla as well, to discuss signage issues with officials from Mat-Su College and Valley Motors.

Although MacKinnon and Scott heard the frustration expressed Friday, they said there was little they could do about it this season. They assured the residents of two things -- they'd look into the behavior of the right of way agent, and they'd get crews out to cut the vegetation standing up to four feet high or higher in the right of way area. And, they said, they'll look into changing the regulations to allow for greater flexibility.

"To promise we can fix this next week, I can't promise that," MacKinnon said. "But by next season, we'll have some regulations in effect."

That doesn't mean, Scott said, business owners should start building signs in the right of way in the meantime.

"We'll get the new regulations into place," Scott said. "But these people are still going to enforce the existing regulations -- that's their job."