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House rejects third substitute to rewrite outdoor-advertising law after hourslong debate on billboard compensation and local control
Summary
After intense floor debate and multiple amendments, the House refused the third substitute of Senate Bill 14, which would have rewritten the Outdoor Advertising Act; debate centered on compensation formulas for billboard takings, tax treatment and whether the bill preempted local land-use authority.
The Utah House of Representatives on March 5, 1997, failed to accept the third substitute of Senate Bill 14, a lengthy measure to amend the state’s Outdoor Advertising Act that drew extended floor debate over how billboards should be valued and whether state rules would displace local control.
Representative Becker, who offered an amendment restoring language the sponsor said was in the original statute, framed the issue as fairness in compensation and tax treatment for signs. Becker argued that current Utah practice allowed billboard owners to claim contiguous and noncontiguous property when government acquires a sign, which could inflate compensation “far in excess” of the sign’s true property value. He told colleagues that Salt Lake County assessor data showed many signs were assessed as personal property and carried low tax values, yet companies sought much higher compensation in buyout claims.
Sponsors and floor managers said they had negotiated a package of pink-sheet amendments they described as a middle ground between municipalities and the billboard industry. Representative Cohen and others urged that the negotiated language preserved local authority except in limited highway widening or reconstruction scenarios and kept the bill workable for both cities and sign owners.
Other Republicans and Democrats pushed amendments to limit the bill’s expansion of billboard protections onto state roads and to alter the compensation and acquisition sections. Representative Tanner proposed language to restrict signs’ extended rights on state roads; Representative Valentine urged study of just-compensation issues in the interim rather than an immediate, sweeping change.
The House voted on a series of substitute and amendment motions; the transcript records multiple divisions and roll-call sequences. The third substitute did not secure the House’s approval and was returned to the Senate for further action. Floor remarks emphasized the trade-offs: supporters said the bill was the result of intensive negotiations and would avoid big taxpayer costs, while opponents warned it would give a single industry special treatment and potentially require state purchases of many billboards.
What happens next: the House returned the failed third substitute to the Senate for further action and the sponsors signaled they expect further negotiations and possible new amendments in subsequent floor or committee work.
