For those of you wondering what happened with the “billboard” vote at last night’s Council meeting, we can report that it was deferred to a future date by a vote of 5-2 (Alds. Allegretti, Bach, Carey, Ryan and Wsol v. DiPietro and Sweeney) after well over two hours of sometimes rancorous discussion and debate. 

The deferral vote came after attorney Kathleen Henn, standing in for City Attorney Everette “Buzz” Hill, advised the Council that it would take a “super-majority” vote to over-ride the decision of the Planning & Zoning Commission (“P&Z”) rejecting the application of the City – on behalf of Generation Group, Inc. (“GGI”) – for zoning code text amendments that would enable GGI to put up four billboards in the “Renaissance Area” along the Tollway.  

That advice ignited an already-testy Allegretti, who angrily insisted that he had recently voted for the text amendments providing for a super-majority vote only because Hill had assured him that a super-majority would not apply to this vote on the billboard issue.  For reasons not entirely clear, locking up this billboard deal ASAP sure seems to have grabbed a top spot on Allegretti’s “to do” list. 

The deferral motion also followed the announcement by both DiPietro and Sweeney that they would be voting to uphold the P&Z decision, thereby preventing a super-majority vote for over-ride.  Had the vote proceeded and over-ride was defeated, the City could not re-apply to P&Z for those text amendments for a full year – although nothing would prevent GGI itself from immediately making its own application, something GGI and Allegretti want no part of. 

Hmmm…can anyone say “ethics ordinance” three times real fast while eating saltines? 

We will address some other aspects of this topic tomorrow, but if you want to get up to speed on it we encourage you to read our two previous “billboard” posts: “The Stench Of Council’s Rush To Billboard Deal” and “Billboard Wars: Allegretti And Owens Defeat Planning & Zoning”.

You also might want to catch Allegretti’s positively shameless shilling for GGI on the Melidosian Motionbox site just as soon as the uploading of the video of last night’s meeting is complete.