Stockton, CA – Last week, Governor Newsom signed AB 476 (Villapudua), enabling San Joaquin County to promote non-commercial public health, emergency, and safety messaging on a digital outdoor display from its property on the San Joaquin General Hospital campus that faces Interstate 5.

“Government entities need to be able to provide urgent health and safety messaging that is tailored to their local needs and circumstances of the time,” said Assemblymember Carlos Villapudua (D-Stockton). “I was honored to have carried this bill that improves San Joaquin County’s ability to convey these important messages by removing red tape and unnecessary rezoning requirements.”

The California Outdoor Advertising Act regulates the placement of signage adjacent to an interstate or highway through its outdoor advertising permit process. To receive an outdoor advertising permit, several prerequisites, one of which requires that the land be zoned as either industrial or commercial, bars nearly all County or city property from being used for this purpose.

“The heavily-traveled corridor on I-5 has been a missed opportunity for promoting timely public health and safety messaging to the community,” said Greg Diederich, Director of San Joaquin County Health Care Services and Interim CEO of SJ Health. “This bill gives the County the ability to provide timely content and reach a broader number of individuals with critical health and safety information ranging from fentanyl awareness and suicide prevention campaigns to emergency alerts and messaging during disasters.”

“Until a few months ago, San Joaquin County had various states of emergency declarations in place

for more than three consecutive years, caused by the pandemic, drought, fires, and flooding from the December 2022 and March 2023 storm systems,” said Robert Rickman, Chair of the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors. “As a first responder myself, I know how critical it is to convey timely information during fluid emergency situations and thanks to Assemblymember Villapudua, we now have an additional tool to do just that.”

AB 476 allows the County to display non-commercial, essential public messaging and announcements for the safety and benefit of San Joaquin residents and visitors.

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