Joe Chaisson: Savin Hill activist has long history of opposing billboard proliferation along the expressway. Photo by Bill ForryOver the next month, a handful of Dorchester’s civic associations will take up the issue of billboards in their neighborhoods. Should they vote to disavow them or should they begin conversations to allow some to be erected?

The city has recently been hit with a flurry of new applications for billboards and last Wednesday night there was a summit meeting at the Savin Hill Apartments of the heads of the Columbia-Savin Hill, Neponset, Clam Point, and Port Norfolk civic associations where they assessed the proposals in an effort to decide whether or not to create a unified front against any new boards.

“When we heard about this electronic billboard, it just set off all kinds of alarms,” said Jeanne Doherty of the Columbia Savin Hill group, referring to a recent application to install one on the NSTAR land on Dewar Street in Savin Hill, a prime location along the southeast expressway. The proposal comes with stringent zoning restrictions. Columbia-Savin Hill will vote on the application at January’s meeting.

Another concern is the style of the billboards – static or electronic? – as companies race to stake claims to erect highly lucrative digital boards along the interstate.

City Councillor Frank Baker indicated he would follow the lead of the civic associations, but added that he had no interest in digital boards: “I asked the mayor’s office to defer any applications until the community gets together,” a position endorsed by state Rep. Dan Hunt, who was at the meeting, and by a representative from state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry’s office.

Baker said he was interested in working out an agreement that could potentially bring one new board into a prime location in exchange for “15 or 20” to be taken off main local thoroughfares like Dorchester Avenue or near the Neponset River. “With all the development on Dot Ave., this would go a long way to clean it up,” he said.

Joe Chiasson of Columbia Savin Hill began the meeting with a history of Dorchester’s reluctance to allow the billboards along the Southeast Expressway and the neighborhood’s main drags. As a result of his civic work in the ‘80s, companies looking to put up billboards had to fight to get okays from civic associations before going before the Zoning Board of Appeals. Chiasson told the group that folks in City Hall would call it “Joe’s Law.”

He noted that the late Mayor Tom Menino “was always anti-billboard. The only new board,” Chiasson said, “was the one behind the school depository on NSTAR land. But every time that board has come up before Savin Hill civic, the civic groups have come together to vote no. The land just sits there and I hope it stays that way.”

In light of the flurry of new applications for billboards under a new administration, Chiasson said, the time was right to bring the civics together – just like old times.

The respective civic associations will decide at their January meetings if they want to reject all billboard applications, or take things on a case-by-case basis.

Said Paul Nutting, a Columbia-Savin Hill executive committee member who is very much involved in local civic affairs: “These billboards are here because of those eyeballs on the highway, not us. It is a cheapening of the landscape that is not meant for us.”

Others were less vocal in their opposition, but no one of the two dozen gathered in the room rushed to the defense of billboard applicants. For her part, Eileen Boyle, president of Columbia Savin Hill, had one word for the recent spate of billboard applications: “casinos.” There was also frustration about the boards atop T stations, which fall outside of the associations’ control because they are on MBTA property.

The prospect of a city-imposed six-month moratorium on any applications came up. “If we get a moratorium, then at least we can get some breathing room,” said Doherty.

“It’s about economic justice,” Nutting said. “We have a bad reputation anyway. It’s a cheapening of the landscape and feeds into the negative impression suburbanites have of us. Not that I give a shit, but it adds fuel to the fire. I think we need to stand firm and say no. They’re not for our eyes.”

The MassDOT Department of Outdoor Advertising, which tracks the number of boards across the state, lists more than 30 of them in Dorchester, the bulk along the interstate.