Connecticut Local Politics

This is what happens when the governor has to make a long commute on I-84 every day: weird proposals start cropping up, like this one:

Gov. M. Jodi Rell quietly used her executive authority this week to curtail highway billboards in Connecticut, surprising an industry that claims her order will hurt numerous local businesses that advertise on the signs.

The order halts any new contracts to build or maintain “outdoor advertising structures, devices or displays” located on state property.

It also immediately stops the renewal of any existing contracts between the state and the outdoor advertising companies, which own the billboard structures but essentially lease the property they sit on from the state.

Rell’s staff said the executive order is intended to prevent companies from signing new contracts until legislation proposed by the governor makes its way through the General Assembly. This year’s legislative session runs until May 7. (AP)

While this is going to cause the state to lose money, outdoor advertisers to lose business and Connecticut to look a little silly to other states, my main issue here is that this was sort of a stealth order. Why not inform, say, the DOT or the advertisers themselves beforehand?

But that’s Rell. Every once in a while, it seems like she’s acting more on a whim or an impulse than anything else.

Source
“Rell curbs freeway billboards in surprise executive order.” Associated Press 8 February, 2008.