Miller: The real reason San Jose officials love digital billboards

Billboards are signs advertising products and services not available at the sign’s location. Such in-your-face advertising was justifiably banned on public property in San Jose for 46 years before the City Council in 2018 revoked that ban with limited public knowledge or approval.

Last February, the council approved the first of several giant digital billboards, which are very profitable for the billboard companies that own them.  Construction has already begun at the Center for Performing Arts. Additional digital billboards will deface other public buildings downtown including the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.

The endorsement of new billboards on public property was not arrived at because the arguments advocating them were rational, persuasive or had convinced a majority of residents billboards are good for San Jose. Ninety-three percent of residents responding to a Planning Department survey believe they are not. Nor does the public seriously believe that billboards will create “urban vibrancy,” or are as “artistic” as their proponents claim and will bring news of civic events to an uninformed city.

Given widespread opposition, why has the city council ignored public disapproval? The most convincing reason is officials believe if something can make money for the city, then the city must damn well do it. If city programs that might otherwise be unfunded can be funded by revenue generated from billboards, then such money couldn’t possibly be tainted as it makes possible a desirable end. This amounts to the immoral, unethical and long-condemned viewpoint known to all students of virtuous government as the ends justify the means.

The irony is decision makers never cared about the amount of money generated from billboard revenues, which is much less than 1% of the city’s annual budget. All that matters is making some amount of money from digital billboards despite the city never conducting a cost-benefit analysis nor considering the hours of staff time and resources tied up as a consequence of pursuing such an obvious special interest.

Officials endorsing some otherwise obviously stupid policy because it makes money must explain what exactly is the limiting principle behind allowing X number of digital billboards to deface public property? If a few are OK, why not billboards on every public building including schools, libraries and City Hall itself? Once decision makers accept the notion that making money for the city cannot be bad, then there is no logical reason why permitting billboards anywhere and everywhere is unjustifiable. Just look at the proliferation of billboards in Los Angeles, where they were never seriously banned, to see San Jose’s dystopian future.

In revoking the ban on new billboards on public property, which has endangered the still existing ban on new billboards on private property, city decision makers have ignored decades of precedent. They failed to understand why previous officials believed billboards advertising national products and services were bad for local business, beautification protected our quality of life and prohibiting new billboards would preserve the city’s historic character, architectural integrity and natural environment. But our current generation of city decision makers is memory-deficient and in so being knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

So, after five years of hearing from us regarding the city council’s increasing acceptance of digital billboards how should you, the residents of San Jose, react to this news? Well, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

John Miller is a founder of No Digital Billboards in San Jose and Scenic America based in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Egotopia: Narcissism and the New American Landscape.