Well, that lasted less than six months. Now drivers entering the city from 321 or 11 will be greeted with a giant, two sided electronic billboard that will surely cast a pall over the "aesthetics" of the new signature intersection. And to add insult to injury, one of the half dozen blaring, blazing images looking down on drivers as they enter the city is none other than Lenoir City mayor, Tony Aikens. Kind of like looking down on his empire.

There's a few oddities about this billboard. According to Lenoir City's zoning regulations,

4. Spacing: No billboard shall be erected within 1,000 (one thousand) feet of an existing billboard. All measurements shall be made parallel to the roadway between perpendiculars extended from the billboard locations in question

There is an existing billboard about 225 feet from this billboard.

In all other cases, a billboard application is heard by the Lenoir City Planning Commission for approval or denial. In this case, there's no evidence, minutes, that this application actually ever went before the planning commission. However, this application did go straight to the city council where it was approved unanimously on September 28, according to the minutes.

Curious, Curious

The .14 of an acre of property, where the billboard is located, was purchased by Roland Properties of Cookeville on October 30th for $115,000.00, 32 days after the billboard was approved by the city council. Roland Digital Media of Cookeville is who the billboard belongs to. Wonder if Roland Properties would have bought the property even if city council hadn't approved the billboard?

Again, Curious, Curious

Any way, however the billboard was able to get it's special approval, it's there now and will forever be gracing the good citizens of Lenoir City with it's beaming lights.

PS, to be fair, I'm a little ahead of the sign company. They haven't got the electronic part of the billboard mounted yet. But it will be soon I'm sure.