Bus advertisements frozen for 4 weeks

Advertising on Chapel Hill Transit buses will remain frozen for at least another four weeks.

During its Monday night meeting, the Chapel Hill Town Council deferred a decision to define the town’s bus advertising policy to its Dec. 3 meeting.

Council members Penny Rich, Jim Ward and Gene Pease voted to uphold the current policy, which was drafted in 2011 and prohibits political and religious ads. But it did not receive the required five votes to pass.

Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt and council members Donna Bell and Matt Czajkowski were all absent from Monday’s meeting.

In August, Chapel Hill’s Church of Reconciliation placed an ad on town buses that called for an end to military aid to Israel.

The debut of the ads has sparked discussion among residents about their content, and whether buses should be zones of free expression or limited public forums.

Last month, Transit Director Steve Spade informed the council that they had been using a draft policy that did not include the political and religious ad restrictions detailed in the approved policy.

As a result, the council suspended the advertising program at its Oct. 24 meeting. It will remain suspended until they reach a consensus on what the policy should be.

Council member Lee Storrow expressed concern that restricting interior advertising would lead to viewpoint discrimination.
He pointed out that the lax enforcement of the policy goes back much further than August.

Storrow said other churches have displayed ads on town buses prior to the Church of Reconciliation’s ad.

“For over a year, no one said anything. No one knew that we were not enforcing a policy,” Storrow said. “No one knew that policy was incorrect.”

Council memberLaurin Easthom said she did not initially support advertising but now sees buses as free speech zones.

“By allowing those ads we have, whether we intended to or not, created a public forum,” she said.

“We’ve opened it up and I do not want to close that door.”

Many groups — including the American Civil Liberties Union — have spoken out in support of the ads out of concern that limiting potentially offensive ads chills free speech.

Others, including Ward, supported the original policy restricting political and religious ads.

“By doing this, I hope to remove Chapel Hill Transit from the center of First Amendment issue,” he said.

Rich said she recalls drafting the policy and considering First Amendment conflicts at a budget work session in 2011.

“We spoke a lot about this policy. It wasn’t something we took lightly,” she said.

Ward said he also wanted to hear from the transit partners, which include the University and the town of Carrboro, before the council makes its final decision.

The partners will meet on Nov. 27 to discuss the bus advertising policy.

Contact the desk editor at city@dailytarheel.com.