Sacramento's Getting Pretty Desperate

According to a staff editorial in the Sacramento Bee, the Governator has actually proposed selling advertising space on the traffic bill boards meant to alert highway drivers of bad traffic conditions in order to shrink California's approximately $20 billion deficit.

This time the governor wants to sell advertising space on state highway message boards.

The proposal is serious. If approved, existing message boards – the ones used to alert drivers to road hazards ahead or abducted children – would be upgraded with LED technology and converted to colorful commercial grade electronic billboards. The state would lease the billboards to outdoor advertising firms and collect the money upfront to help balance the state budget – as much as $2 billion over 20 years for 500 billboards.