Lamar Lobbies to Keep Taxpayer Subsidies for Billboards in S. Dakota

(MoneyWatch)  Lamar Advertising has found a nemesis in South Dakota: State Rep. Mark Kirkeby, R-Rapid City, who wants to raise the state fee for operating a billboard. It costs just $32 a year to operate a billboard in the state, a price which hasn't gone up since the 1980s.

The state Department of Transportation spends $75,000 to inspect billboards but only raises $25,000 from the fees, according to the Argus Leader.

Lamar is lobbying against the fee increase, and if history is a guide, it will win. That's because the billboard industry has successfully persuaded a majority of U.S. states to charge fees that are far lower than the cost to taxpayers of monitoring them, according to a 2006 study by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. In sum, it's corporate welfare for billboard owners. But don't expect to see Kirkeby's fellow Republicans rallying against "socialism" or "bailouts" for billboards. That's because this is the kind of socialism that business wants: standing against Kirkeby are Wall Drug owner Ted Hustead, the governor's sister (she's a lobbyist for the Inn Keepers Association), and the state chamber of commerce.

Kirkeby is appealing to voters:

I think the public would certainly support having a Louisiana company leave some additional revenues in South Dakota ... to help compensate for us having to look at their billboards every single day.

Kirkeby has proposed a fee increase before, but it was lobbied to death by the billboard industry, which stands poised to same thing again:

Doug Rumpca, vice president and general manager for Lamar Advertising of South Dakota, said the failure of Kirkeby's legislation this year was the legislator's own fault.

"He was not willing to meet in the middle," Rumpca said. "He made it very clear that he wanted to make this effectively hurt Lamar."

Lamar may have the last laugh. Its lobbyist, Dick Gregerson, is also a member of the state Transportation Commission.

BNET has noted before the scorched earth approach that Lamar takes toward billboard regulation. In Detroit, the company is suing the city to overturn $40,000 in unpaid fees. Lamar argues that the fees are illegal because they exceed the cost to the city of enforcing billboard law, and because regulating billboards is against the First Amendment.

Lamar's intent is to turn Detroit, South Dakota and everywhere else into Los Angeles, New York and Toronto, where illegal and unregulated billboards have ruined entire neighborhoods.

Image by IllegalBillboards.org.