CSW urges legislators to reject billboard bills
TO: All Wisconsin Legislators
FROM: Charlie Mitchell, Founder, Scenic Wisconsin
Gary R. Goyke, President of Scenic Wisconsin Board of Directors
RE: Opposition to Billboard Bills (AB 502/SB 497 and AB 521/SB 525)
DATE: January 5, 2026
Scenic Wisconsin is opposed to pending legislation that would substantially change state law relating to regulation of billboards. This letter lays out the reasons for our opposition.
- AB 502 & SB 497, relating to outdoor advertising signs that are affected by transportation-related projects
Companion bills AB 502 and SB 497 would allow outdoor advertising signs, commonly known as billboards, which need to be removed to make way for highway reconstruction such as widening, to be transferred to a place elsewhere in the community. Billboards could be relocated by the billboard owner even if the billboard does not conform to local ordinances. This process of relocating undermines local community efforts at highway beautification.
Additionally, the bills would require that the Wisconsin Department of Transportation pay the cost of relocating a billboard whenever a public project affects the billboard’s visibility. This measure will raise the cost of highway projects and taxpayers will bear the additional expense.
The bills also provide that billboards be evaluated separately from other buildings that may need to be removed at the same time because of a highway project. This special treatment gives the billboard owner an advantage to gain a higher buy-out amount in the condemnation process, and taxpayers bear the expense. We are in agreement with the League of Wisconsin Municipalities testimony opposing these bills. (For your convenience, we will send the League’s testimony to you via email.)
- AB 521 & SB 525 relating to removal of vegetation obstructing outdoor advertising signs
Companion bills AB 521 and SB 525 would allow clear cutting of trees and shrubs on the public right-of-way along our major highways to provide better views of outdoor advertising signs. Clear cutting would be allowed for a distance of 500 feet along the roadway near the sign.
However, trees and shrubs are valuable assets that provide safety benefits to motorists that use the highways. This vegetation is paid for by taxpayers. Under management of the state Department of Transportation, trees are used as snow, wind and light screens. Trees reduce erosion and help prevent flooding. Trees are planted by the DOT to serve as living snow fences. While the billboard owner would pay $300 per tree that is part of a snow fence that is cut down, it is not good public policy to be cutting down snow fences.
Other provisions of these bills are objectionable because they reduce supervision of tree removal by the DOT. The sign owner would need to apply only once, then will have permission to cut trees whenever they want in the future. Now the owner must apply each time they want to remove vegetation and do it in close coordination with the DOT. We do not believe it best to change the state statutes but rather to potentially work through the administrative rule process.
For greater details about the impact of these bills, please see the DOT testimony submitted in opposition to SB 525 in November of 2025. (For your convenience, we will also send the DOT testimony to you via email.)
Billboard owners have no inherent right to have a sign or billboard be visible from a highway. The purpose of the highway program is public transportation, and it should be managed for that purpose, not as an advertising corridor.
We sincerely request your careful review of these bills and ask that you not adopt them as the session draws to a close.
The mission of Scenic Wisconsin is to preserve and enhance the visual character of Wisconsin. We believe that America’s scenic heritage is fundamentally important to individual and collective well-being, to economic prosperity, to a healthy ecology, and to the quality of everyday life. Our objectives are to support and promote programs and policies that protect natural beauty in our environment, preserve landscapes and streetscapes, protect historic and cultural symbols such as barns, conserve trees, and improve the appearance of communities.
Scenic Wisconsin is a 501 (c) 3 organization dedicated through advocacy to preserving and enhancing the scenic character of Wisconsin communities and its rural countryside. You may visit us at www.scenicwisconsin.org or get to know more about us at our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/scenicwisconsin/.
Year End Report December 2025
Dear Friends,
Confronting anti-scenic billboard bills, advocating saving monarch butterflies, and fighting unwanted billboards, we actively engaged state legislators and the public.
Testimony against relocating billboards
Board member Vernie Smith testified on behalf of Scenic Wisconsin against bills intended to allow outdoor advertising signs which need to be removed to make way for highway reconstruction to be transferred to a place elsewhere in the community. The bills would allow relocation by the Department of Transportation even if the signs do not conform to local ordinances. They would undermine local community efforts at highway beautification.
The companion bills SB 497 and AB 502 were the subject of public hearings of the Senate Transportation Committee and
the Assembly Transportation Committee in the state capitol in Madison in November. An additional provision would require that the DOT pay the cost of relocating a billboard whenever a public project affects the billboard’s visibility.
Testimony against cutting down trees for better views of billboards
Vernie also testified against a set of bills SB 525 and AB 521 that would eliminate supervision by the DOT of clear-cutting trees and shrubs that reduce visibility of billboards along state and federal highways. The bills would allow billboard owners to apply only once to clear-cut trees whenever they want into the future. The DOT uses and manages trees and shrubs for highway safety, for example, as snow, wind and light screens, and to prevent soil erosion and flooding. The testimony also took place in November and was particularly effective because of Vernie’s use of an exhibit showing in three dimensions how vegetation would be lost, and along with it scenic beauty.
Action to advance butterfly protection bills
Wildlife is a scenic asset, and Scenic Wisconsin has engaged in action to help protect the beautiful and endangered monarch butterfly. Scenic Wisconsin president Gary Goyke hosted a press conference at the Butterfly Gardens in Appleton to introduce bills that would make the monarch butterfly the official Wisconsin state butterfly. Making a strong case for the butterfly was Butterfly Gardens founder Jack Voight. The bills are intended to bring needed public awareness and appreciation to the monarch, which is an endangered species that has lost 90% of its population since 1990. Monarch butterflies contribute to Wisconsin’s scenic beauty, and they also help pollinate fruits and vegetables that are part of our food supply.
In September, board member Jason Haas spoke on behalf of Scenic Wisconsin in favor of the bill, AB 322, before the Assembly Committee on the Environment. In October, the Committee approved the bill for a vote by the full Assembly.
Removal of unwanted billboards
The owner of a popular pizza restaurant, Cranky Pat’s in Neenah, bought an adjoining lot to expand his park-
ing area. What David Earle did not know was how hard it would be to remove the two billboards that stand on
the lot. David invited Gary to come to the site to fully understand the problem, which is that the billboards are on
a perpetual lease, no matter who owns the land they stand on. David came to a meeting of the Scenic Wiscon-
sin board in May to make a plan to get the billboards removed. In attendance was David’s state representative,
Dean Kaufert, former mayor of Neenah. Currently, indications are that we will not be able to change the law to
nullify perpetual leases of billboards
Help us Continue to Advocate for Wisconsin’s Scenic Beauty
It takes financial support to continue to defend scenery against the self-serving actions of the well-funded outdoor advertising industry. Please contribute as much as you are willing and able to. Return the enclosed slip with your check in the enclosed envelope.
Alternatively, you can contribute electronically. Go to the Scenic Wisconsin website scenicwisconsin.org and simply click on “membership” and follow the instructions.
Your past support has kept us going this far. Please help us keep fighting to make our mission statement a bigger part of Wisconsin’s future.
We wish our friends and supporters a very Happy and Successful New Year!
Garv Govke. President
Charlie Mitchell, Founder
Assembly Committee on the Environment Moves Monarch Butterfly Bill Forward
City Rejects Massive Billboard for Downtown Tower
Lawmakers advocate for the monarch to become official Wisconsin state butterfly
Bills announced at news conference at Butterfly Gardens
By Charlie Mitchell
Gary Goyke, president of Citizens for a Scenic Wisconsin, opened the conference and said that 14 state representatives and 5 senators have signed on as co-authors of two bills crafted to make the monarch butterfly the official Wisconsin state butterfly. Supporters hope that the publicity brought by the designation will create awareness of the monarch’s endangered status and boost support for conservation of the monarch’s habitat.
Butterfly Gardens was founded in Appleton as a preserve to boost the monarch population and as an observatory where people can be among the butterflies and see them up close. The news conference began about 11:00am on July 14 with TV cameras from four local stations and 34 people in attendance, including most of the Citizens for a Scenic Wisconsin board members.
Goyke introduced Jack Voight, owner of Butterfly Gardens, who made a strong case for protecting the butterflies. Voight said that monarchs are not only beautiful, but are pollinators of fruits and vegetables, and they have suffered a 90% population decline in recent decades.
Representative Paul Tittl (R – Manitowoc), primary Assembly author of the bills, enlarged on Voight’s case. Everybody loves monarchs, Tittl said. They add to people’s enjoyment of the outdoors. Tittl asked everybody to contact their legislators to support bills AB322 and SB334.
City of Appleton Alder Denise Fenton expressed her support for the bills. The conference ended about 11:30.
Monarchs migrate north from Mexico and into Wisconsin in the summer. They breed in Wisconsin and return to Mexico in the fall. Butterflies have been suffering from loss of habitat, insecticide use, and destruction of milkweed that they feed on.
You can help monarchs by planting milkweed in your yard.
Purchased land came with unsightly billboards
By Charlie Mitchell
How do you take down billboards with a perpetual lease?
Cars are parked before the billboards on Cranky Pat’s expanded parking lot. Photos courtesy Gary Goyke.
The owner of the popular pizza restaurant in Neenah called Cranky Pat’s bought a small piece of land adjoining his property so he could expand his parking lot to accommodate his growing business. David Earle knew there were two billboards on the land before he bought it, of course, but what he didn’t know was how hard it would be to take those billboards down. It turns out that the land came with an easement for placement of those billboards, and the equivalent of a perpetual lease.
Earle wanted to remove the billboards ever since he bought the land on South Commercial Street in late 2024, for a number of reasons. Not only do they present large unsightly commercial messages, but they are positioned near the middle of the expanded parking lot so that they separate the new parking space from the long-existing parking lot. And Earle is concerned that one or both of them could blow down in a storm and damage one or more cars parked nearby.
Each billboard face is about 12 feet tall and 24 feet wide. The top of each billboard face is about 17 feet high.
The lease holder and owner of the billboard, Lamar Advertising, does not want to relinquish the lease so the billboards can be taken down. Lamar has refused Earle’s approaches to buy out the lease.
The City of Neenah attorney, whom Earle inquired to, could not offer advice about getting the billboards removed since there is no obvious evidence that any laws are being broken. Earle said he learned that the billboards do not conform to current city ordinances so that if they come down by natural causes, such as blown down by a storm, they can not be re-erected. Also, the amount spent to reinforce a billboard cannot exceed the value of the materials it is constructed of.
Two billboards appear to the left of the entrance to Cranky Pat’s pizza restaurant. Photos courtesy Gary Goyke.
The billboards are made of steel including steel posts. The steel materials look new enough to suggest that the billboards may have been rebuilt in recent years
Invited by Earle, Citizens for a Scenic Wisconsin president Gary Goyke went to Neenah early in May to visit Earle and to make observations and gather information. After the visit, Goyke invited Earle to attend the meeting of the CSW board of directors on May 21.
Earle related his story of buying the land with the billboards and his attempts to get them taken down to the board at the meeting. Goyke proposed a four-point plan directed at getting them taken down:
- Do due diligence and further discovery.
- Ask WisDOT what their involvement has been and how strong they consider the lease.
- Keep State Rep. Dean Kaufert, former mayor of Neenah, involved.
- Contact the City of Neenah alderman and encourage him to help.
Goyke said that, in his position as president of CSW, he has heard of several other cases where a billboard obstructing a business or government project is hard to remove.
Year End Report December 2024
Includes:
Anti-scenic Billboard Bills Died in State Legislature
Butterfly Protection Bill Stalls in State Senate
Click HERE to view the 2024 Year end report.
Monarch butterfly bill dies in senate committee
Bill would have designated the monarch as state butterfly
By Charlie Mitchell 3 April 2024
The bill that would have designated the monarch butterfly as the official Wisconsin state butterfly died in the Senate Committee on Government Operations, left off the agenda by the committee chairman last month, just days before the 2023-24 legislative session ended. The bill, which would have made the monarch the state butterfly in the same way that the badger is designated as state animal and the sugar maple is designated as state tree, was intended to bring needed attention to the monarch, which is an endangered species.
The bill, promulgated by Butterfly Gardens in Appleton, was actively supported by Citizens for a Scenic Wisconsin. Jack Voight, owner of Butterfly Gardens, was the main speaker at CSW’s Legislative Day which was held September 27th in a conference room in the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison. Voight announced the creation of the bill at a press conference that day.
While the bill was killed in committee, it did have 30 cosponsors, which indicates that the bill was respected and popular in the legislature. The bill had the endorsement of the influential Wisconsin Conservation Congress, as well as endorsements of many other respected environmentalists and butterfly oriented organizations.
The monarch butterfly is a charming and beloved creature that people like to see flying around their backyards. The butterfly bill would have increased tourism by stimulating people’s interest in observing the monarch at nature centers and business developments.
Also, butterflies benefit people by helping pollinate fruits and vegetables that are part of our food supply. It is in the interest of the human population to keep butterflies healthy and prospering. The monarch butterfly is not prospering, it is an endangered species, having lost 90% of its population since 1990. The bill would have increased awareness of the plight of the monarch and encouraged people to stop the loss of butterfly habitat.
The mission of Butterfly Gardens, in addition to entertaining visitors, is to provide habitat for butterflies on their long annual journey from the northern US to central Mexico. Increased use of herbicides have greatly reduced the amount of milkweed, the monarch’s primary habitat.
The bill had been approved by the Assembly Transportation Committee by a vote of 8 – 0 in February and seemed well on its way to passage at that time. A public hearing had been held in November. Among the speakers in favor were Rep. Paul Tittl, author of the bill, Voight, and Steve Arnold, former mayor of Fitchburg.
Voight recently said that he is determined to try for passage again next year.
Billboard bills die in committees at end of legislative session
Bills would have forced municipalities to relocate outdoor advertising signs that need to be removed to make way for highway widening projects
By Charlie Mitchell April 2, 2024
Bills intended to require that outdoor advertising signs which need to be removed to make way for highway reconstruction be transferred to a place elsewhere in the municipality died in committees as the 2023-24 legislative session came to a close last month. The bills would have required relocation even if the sign did not conform to local ordinances. The bills also specified that the Department of Transportation must pay the owner of the sign the costs of relocation.
Having opposed these bills during the course of the legislative session, Citizens for a Scenic Wisconsin can consider this a victory.
The companion bills, Senate Bill 467 and Assembly Bill 486, were the subject of public hearings in the Senate Transportation Committee in December and the Assembly Transportation Committee in January. The bills were promulgated by the Outdoor Advertising Association of Wisconsin. A representative of the OAA said that the measures called for in the bills are intended to help them serve the advertising needs of their customers.
However, it is the purpose of a local sign ordinance to manage the placement and size of outdoor advertising signs for the benefit of the citizens of their community. Outdoor advertising signs along streets or highways, commonly known as billboards, are considered intrusive in many municipalities. Residents often feel that billboards do not complement the way they want their community to look, so they enact ordinances that limit their size, height, location, spacing, and lighting. They might even prohibit them altogether.
Other organizations registered their support of the bills with the committees. These included trade associations for auto dealerships, restaurants, and hotels.
Opponents of the bills included Citizens for a Scenic Wisconsin, the Department of Transportation, the League of Municipalities, the City of Milwaukee, the City of Madison, and Wisconsin Conservation Voters.
Steve Arnold, former mayor of Fitchburg, speaking for CSW at the hearing in December, made an effective case against AB468 by citing his experience controlling billboards when he was mayor. Steve said that the City of Fitchburg wants to get rid of billboards in their city, and he made that point at the hearing. He said when a billboard needs to come down for a good reason like a highway improvement project, he expects the billboard to be removed and not placed elsewhere. The DoT should buy out the billboard in the same way that it buys out land and buildings that are in the way of a highway improvement project.
Letters of opposition from CSW board of directors members Vernie Smith and Rich Eggleston were recognized by the committee. These letters made the case that to make municipalities which have ordinances to limit or prohibit billboards accept undesired relocation and placement of billboards by force of law runs counter to a municipality’s authority to govern itself.
In their statement to the committee, the DoT representatives presented their fiscal estimate that showed that the bill would be expensive to taxpayers in the range of $10s of millions. The DoT also stated their concern that to relocate a non-conforming billboard would be counter to the spirit of the federal Highway Beautification Act and could jeopardize highway funding from the federal government.
The hearing before the Senate Transportation Committee that took place in January was essentially a replay of the assembly hearing. Letters to the Committee were sent by CSW board members Vernie Smith and Charlie Mitchell.
Gary Goyke, president of CSW and legislative council to CSW, speaking on March 20, said that he thinks that the committee members were stymied by the opposition, especially from the DoT.
The bills would have undermined local community efforts at highway beautification. The scenic beauty of a community has a direct impact on its housing values, its ability to attract new residents and businesses, and it affects the quality of life of its residents.
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