The vote among City Council members is likely to be close Tuesday on a proposed ordinance to ban new billboards in El Paso and to restrict the use of so-called digital billboards.

A 4-4 vote would send the issue to Mayor John Cook, who has made it clear he wants a compromise – something less restrictive than the recommendation supported by the city’s planning staff and closer to the compromise reached early this year in negotiations with the sign industry.

City Rep. Ann Lilly is the sponsor of the proposed ordinance, which is supported by Reps. Susie Byrd, Steve Ortega and Beto O’Rourke.

But one local businessman who called NewspaperTree.com suggested that O’Rourke may have a conflict of interest that could keep him from voting due to of his ownership of Stanton Street Technology Group Inc., a company that offers variety of Web-based services, including advertising.

O’Rourke said he does not think he has a conflict of interest because Stanton Street doesn’t compete with billboards.

But, he said, “It’s a legitimate question. The responsible thing for me to do is take it to the city attorney. I hadn’t thought about it (before).”

In addition to banning any new billboards unless they are erected in exchange for other signs that are taken down, the proposed billboard ordinance would:

-- Permit a new, conventional billboard to be erected only if three others are taken down.

-- Restrict the flashier, changing digital billboards by allowing new ones to go up only if 16 conventional boards are removed.

-- Allow no more than one digital billboard to be built on a roadway, such as I-10, per mile.

-- Limit the rate at which digital signs’ faces could change to once a minute from the current standard of eight seconds between changes.

While conventional billboards are static, changing only when their faces are manually replaced, digital signs offer high-tech images that can carry changing advertisements for multiple businesses and can be easily altered from an office computer system. A third type of billboard on which the faces change to offer several advertisements is actually mechanical, not digital.

Billboards compete in the market for advertising revenues with newspapers, magazines, smaller businesses’ on-premises signs, Yellow Pages, radio, TV and, some would say, Internet websites.

O’Rourke’s company website says this about its advertising services:

“Now it is time to maximize your return on investment with an Internet Advertising Campaign that allows tech-savvy customers searching specifically for your products and services to find your website!

"Think of your search engine listing and paid sponsored links as an ad just a few clicks away from a sale. Using search engine optimization and search engine marketing (pay-per-click) you can dynamically control your advertising message in organic search results and paid sponsored links.

“Stanton Street Technology Group will work with you to develop an Internet Advertising Campaign that complements your company's marketing strategies and produces customers.”

O’Rourke contends that the Web pages Stanton Street designs for businesses offer a wide variety of services for building businesses that go beyond billboards.

“I do not feel like my company is in any way in competing with outdoor media,” he said. “I’m not against them, I’m not competing with them and I don’t see a conflict.”

Tim Anderson, vice president of Clear Channel Outdoor Texas Inc., which owns more than 60 percent of the billboards along El Paso’s streets and highways, indicated that the company will not challenge O’Rourke’s participation or vote on the issue.

“I think the the representative is wise to take the issue to the city attorney for an opinion,” Anderson said. “Certainly, he would wish to avoid an impropriety or an appearance of an impropriety.

“So I’m sure that with guidance from the city attorney, Rep. O’Rourke will make an appropriate decision.”

Clear Channel has spent more than a year fighting restrictions on conventional and digital billboards as the proposals worked their way through the city staff, the City Plan Commission and a City Council committee headed for the full City Council.

Asked about the extent of the competition between billboards and Internet advertising, Anderson said, “You’re really talking about a subset of advertising when it comes to the Internet. …

“While there is definitely competition, I’m not prepared to say Rep. O’Rourke’s business is such competition that it rises to the level of a conflict of interest.”

One provision of the city’s ethics ordinance that might apply in a situation where a member of City Council voting on the fate of a competitor or a competing industry is the standards of conduct provision.

It states that officers or employees of the city shall “not participate in making or influencing any city government decision or action in which they know that they have any financial interest distinguishable from that of the public generally or from that of other city officers or employees generally.”

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To reach David Crowder, write to dcrowder@epmediagroup.com or call (915) 351-0605, ext. 30, or 630-6622.