State revokes permit for billboard at center of playground dispute
Playground vanishes as billboard dispute grows heated Advertising company sues ODOT over denial of Hefner Parkway billboard Billboard dispute roils Hefner Parkway neighbors
The state has revoked a permit for a billboard along Lake Hefner Parkway, where a play structure for hearing-impaired children vanished under mysterious circumstances last month.
The dispute centers on whether the billboard would be within 500 feet of a playground. Regulations forbid billboards near where children play.
In a letter Wednesday to an attorney for the billboard company, Lamar, a state Transportation Department official said submission of false information in support of an application is sufficient grounds to "deny or cancel" a permit.
The letter goes on to say information received since the permit was granted last week makes representations made during the permit application process "false, or at the very least, misleading."
Previously, Oklahoman City Council unanimously passed an ordinance intended to block erection of the billboard near the Hearts for Hearing clinic at Hefner Pointe.
A $6,500 play structure for children with hearing impairments had disappeared as a dispute over plans for the electronic billboard had grown increasingly bitter.
![<strong>A traffic jam in is pictured along Lake Hefner Parkway, where a local advertising company hoped to install an electronic billboard. [Jim Beckel/The Oklahoman archives]</strong>](http://cdn2.newsok.biz/cache/large960_blur-8414563c0eca11a6125c77fcf03ed607.jpg)
OU and Norman High School graduate, formerly worked as a reporter and editor for the Associated Press, the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, and the Norman Transcript. Married, two children, lives in Norman. Read more ›