After a two-hour long debate, Clear Channel was granted a temporary restraining order. The community’s concerns were heard, and on November 6th, the next hearing will be scheduled.
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Bates Area Civic Association 
Yes, it sounded like Clear Channel is willing to cut a deal with the city (placing their billboards somewhere downtown or another prime spot) but the city is playing hardball and trying to get the billboards taken down immediately and then compensating Clear Channel, as required by law, later. DCRA actually came off as a little reckless in this case, because they had some other, lengthier processes to move the billboards but opted to move as swiftly as possible (once they decided to move at all)! I got the sense that the city was surprised by the Restraining Order move– they have a contractor already lined up to take the billboards down. Here’s hoping that next month a judge will make a ruling so that this can move forward. Thanks again to everyone who’s been involved in this, making sure that our community is not left out of the discussions.
Thank you to all who took time out of their days to track and report on Wednesday’s events. Also, I honestly never expected the city to respond to our demands and the facts in this case. I now have an ounce of faith that District gov’t can work for its residents.
At his visit to the last BACA meeting, the mayor actually mentioned that he expected Clear Channel to file a Temporary Restraining Order. My fear is that the city did this – somewhat recklessly as Derek said – to say that they actually did something, but now they will lose impetus and give up the cause. It did seem clear that our protest as a united community was pretty powerful in getting the political support to make this move.
The billboards are indeed illegal, but the problem seemed to be the city’s lack of doing anything about it until now. Also Anita pointed out that only in the past few years have records been automated, or digitized i guess, at DCRA which enabled us to find a lot of the info that we are now moving forward with