Scott Neal, Eden Prairie City Manager

Several months ago, the City prevailed in federal court in a lawsuit brought against us by an attorney named Adam Webb on behalf of a company called Advantage Media. I've written about this case before. It's about billboards

Eden Prairie has an ordinance that regulates the use of outdoor signage. Mr. Webb represents a company that plans to make money from the sales and marketing of outdoor advertising, on signs that do not yet exist. Mr. Webb alleged in his lawsuit that Eden Prairie is a city that is "grossly under-served by advertising signs". With all due respect to Mr. Webb, the City Council and I disagreed with that assessment of our community.

For over 25 years, the City's Sign Code has allowed freestanding signs, subject to certain limitations, including a maximum area of 80 square feet or less. The City's sign restrictions are designed to reduce distraction and visual blight. Knowing of these limitations, Advantage Media filed fourteen applications to build large sign structures, thirteen of which would have two 672-square foot faces, with three messages on each face that would rotate every six to ten seconds. The system for rotating the messages, called "trivision technology," was designed, according to Advantage Media's owner, to "catch your attention." The proposed sign structures included 110 violations of the City Code, and were all denied.

Reasonable people can disagree, but there was no way that we were going to grant anything close to satisfaction to Mr. Webb. So we went to court to defend our ordinance. The City was represented by a fine attorney from the Greene-Espel law firm named John Baker, who also happens to be an Eden Prairie resident. Mr. Baker and the City prevailed in District Court. Mr. Webb then appealed the District Court decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. That case would have normally been heard in at the U.S. Courthouse in St. Paul , but because there is a rather significant remodeling project going on right now in the Courthouse, it was argued in the U.S. Courthouse in St. Louis , Missouri .

I'm guessing that most of the people that read this blog have never been inside a U.S. Courthouse, much less listened in to the oral arguments of a lawsuit. I never have. If you've always wanted to hear oral arguments in a federal court case, and you've got thirty minutes to spare, click on the link below and you will connect with a site maintained by the court that will allow you to hear the lawyers make their respective arguments to the court.

http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/oralargs/oaFrame.html, click on "case number," type in 06-1035, and either play it in RealAudio, Quicktime, or Windows Media format or download it as a MP3 file.

Or click to play (30 minutes).

The first voice you hear will be Mr. Webb. He gets 15 minutes. The second voice you hear will be Mr. Baker. He also gets 15 minutes. After you've listened to both sides, I am interested in what you think of this situation.

I've opened the "Comments" feature of my blog for readers to share their thoughts on the respective positions on this issue. Just click on the comments link at the bottom of this blog entry.

I'll leave the comments feature open for a week.

At the end of the week, I'll turn off the comments feature and share the results.