DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis says he is scheduled to meet next week with the lawyer who represents a billboard company to see whether a controversial flashing sign in Brookhaven can be moved.
“We’re going to sit down on Monday and we’re going to see what kind of options [there are],” Ellis told about 100 residents and county employees attending a town hall meeting at Ashford Park Elementary on Jan. 31. “I’m going to have to offer something in exchange for what they’re giving up.”
The billboard’s location, at 3967 Peachtree Road, was approved as part of a court decree resolving a lawsuit between the county and Action Outdoor Advertising over the county’s sign ordinance.
The billboard, erected in October, has been extremely unpopular with some residents. Ellis said he heard so many complaints about the billboard that he came out to Brookhaven to take a look at it.
Resident Josh Cobb, one of the people who has been writing Ellis, attended the Jan. 31 meeting and called the lighted billboard’s location “hideous.”
“This has got to go,” Cobb said. “It is a boil and has to be lanced.”
During the two-hour gathering at Ashford Park Elementary, Ellis also said he believed efforts to create a new city of Brookhaven should move more slowly so the proposed city could receive more study. A proposal before the state Legislature to create the city calls for a public vote in July by residents in the area that would be incorporated.
Proponents of the city have argued that efforts to delay the vote are little more than veiled efforts to kill the city. But Ellis said he did not believe that “whoa means no.”
“We need more information on Brookhaven,” Ellis said. “We need more information on other cities. I think we need to put the brakes on.”
His statements drew applause from many in the audience, which included a number of people who earlier in the day had attended a hearing at the Legislature on the proposal. Ellis also attended that hearing.
“The current process pits the county against the cities and it pits the cities against other cities,” Ellis said. “I think we need to wait. I think we need to study this thing.”