An advertising company that owns a billboard destroyed by heavy winds late last year wants to reconstruct it, which could pose a complicated legal question for Humboldt County at an upcoming appeal hearing at the board of supervisors.
Eureka-based Allpoints Outdoor, Inc., owns the billboard, along with a number of other roadside signs along the coastal wetlands off U.S. Highway 101 just south of Eureka. New billboards are no longer allowed to be built there, but existing ones are grandfathered into the current zoning.
The key question for the board of supervisors: If a damaged billboard is rebuilt, does it constitute a new billboard altogether or the reconstruction of the old one?
“Putting a billboard upstream from a highway bridge is expressly prohibited by state law,” Jennifer Kalt of Humboldt Baykeeper said. “In a flood, the billboard could be swept into the river… Even if you don’t care about coastal wetlands, you should care about that.”
