East Side billboard in its last days

billboard

East Side, St. Paul will have no message for you, so you can soon stop gathering at the corner of Payne and Minnehaha waiting for it. If you were, of course.

The city’s most controversial billboard, which currently says nothing and hasn’t for quite some time, is coming down, Fred Melo at the Pioneer Press reports.

The billboard has been a contentious beast atop the eastern district police station.

St. Paul bans billboards but City Council member Dan Bostrom has been spearheading efforts to keep the billboard and use it to deliver inspirational messages to East Side residents.

The city will remove the billboard the week of May 4 at a cost of about $10,000.

In January, the council voted to spend $5,000 to “save” it.

“Our new motto should be ‘We brought down the Billboard…what’s next?'” a member of the Tear Down the Board Facebook group said.