[Durham INC] Billboard bill update

[Pat Carstensen]

I was totally confused about where the billboard bill ended up and why we weren't hearing anything about asking the governor to veto it.  This sort of clears it up, tho the "wrong bill" is one we would like a lot more.

Billboard bill just can't get out of legislatureA proposal allowing more trees to be cleared around billboards came a long way this session - but not quite far enough.After dying in every session for the last few years it received overwhelming legislative support this year.But somehow, in the tumult of the last few days of the session, the billboard bill that easily passed the House and Senate never made it to Gov. Bev Perdue's desk. It's still sitting in the legislature.Legislative leaders and clerks take a few formal steps involving official stamps and signatures before sending a bill to the governor. For the billboard bill, there was a slip on this last leg of the trip.Legislative staff was tightlipped about what happened, but Tony Adams, lobbyist for the N.C. Outside Advertising Association, said the wrong version of the bill was treated to all the legislative finishing touches.
"In all the rushing at the end of the session, inadvertently the wrong version was stamped as engrossed and ratified," he said. The House took its last vote on the bill June 17. Adams said the association president caught the mistake the next night, after legislators had all gone home, when he looked at the bill online.Once the approved version gets the right stamps and signatures, it can go to Perdue, Adams said.Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/07/03/1317636/billboard-bill-just-cant-get-out.html#ixzz1RFlTDueg 		 	   		  
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