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A 12-foot by 24-foot billboard will not be installed along West Circle Drive after Mayor Ardell Brede’s veto of a previously passed compromise which would have allowed Fairway Outdoor Advertising to place the digital billboard on West Circle Drive near Highway 14 with the removal of two and a half square feet of billboard space that the company currently owns throughout the city.

The council had previously voted 5-1 to allow the billboard, over the objections of Mayor Brede and council member Ed Hruska, who took part in the unanimous vote to ban billboards in that location in 1997.

The council would have needed a super majority vote of with five out of a typical seven member council to readopt the ordinance following the veto. With the council at six members, the vote required was five of the six.

Council member Sandra Means, who had previously supported the compromise allowing the billboard, changed her vote after receiving feedback from citizens in her ward.

“I believe I have to respect the concerns expressed by my constituents,” Means said.

Council member Bruce Snyder, who represents the third ward in northwestern Rochester, where the billboard would have been placed, supported the compromise.

“Even though we represent different wards in the city, we really represent the whole city,” he said. “This is a good trade for Rochester. Is it something that I’d want to bring in to the third ward, not necessarily.”

Council members Michael Wojcik and Mark Bilderback noted that businesses in that area of west Circle Drive already have signage that is larger and brighter than the billboard under consideration.

“If the land development patterns had been different…it would be one thing,” said Wojcik. “The kind of buildings and the kind of land use that’s out there is something that a billboard is not going to detract from. These other ten locations are places where the billboard does detract from the area.”

“We are choosing to deliberately put those billboards back in place.”

Interim council president Randy Staver noted that though the land use plan showed the area as commercial/industrial in 1997, the land was undeveloped at that point and has since become populated with businesses.

“One of the few constants in life is change,” Staver said. “I’m looking out for all of Rochester.”

Hruska noted the more than year-long process the 1997 council went through before adopting the current ordinance prohibiting billboards on that stretch of road, and expressed concern about setting a precedent that would make it easier to place billboards along Circle Drive.

“This group does not understand what we went through in putting this thing together,” he said.

Brede stated that he had become even more concerned about the billboard after reading national press reports of safety hazards posed by billboards.

“This is a win for the people of Rochester,” Brede said. “If this would have gone through, what precedent would it have set for the area and for East Circle Drive as that develops?”