SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35 ORLANDO) -
He's poured his heart into his home, turning a simple house in Longwood into an oasis. It's been quiet, tranquil and peaceful … until now.
"I feel like it's an invasion of my privacy," Kordon says. "I have no where else to go to relax and now I'm forced to look at this."
He's talking about a giant LED billboard perched along I-4 between Longwood and Lake Mary, seen from Kordon's backyard. We interviewed him on his property while the billboard flashed an ad for a bar, touting pitchers of beer and scantily clad women.
"I don't like my children looking at stuff that's like this," Kordon explains. "The path that they choose is their choice, but right now I want it to by my choice and it's not,"
Instead, it was the choice of the county. Seminole County Commissioners approved the billboard back in May and says from time to time, the billboard will be used for both public service and urgent announcements.
But chuck, who can see the sign from inside his home, is not buying it.
"I feel there tactics are questionable," Kordon says.
And he's not alone. His neighbors are furious.
"We've been to the meetings," neighbor Barrie Tims says. "We've talked to the commissioners and they totally ignore us, and don't treat us like we are important."
The county says they met with homeowners in January to discuss a landscape plan to hide the sign. They say neighbors even asked for a bamboo hedge. The hedge won't go up for a few more months, and it will take three years before it's tall enough to hide the sign.
"I feel that our property value is even less now," Kordon says.
So until the bamboo grows, Kordon and his neighbors will be stuck staring at the backyard billboard.
