The debate over electronic billboards that transfixed Pittsburgh government last year has moved into a new phase, in which the courts and council will decide how the trend in outdoor advertising should be handled locally.

Last week, a few dozen people gathered Downtown at the city Planning Department's invitation to talk about proposed new rules for light-emitting diode billboards. The next day, Lamar Advertising filed a Common Pleas Court appeal of a zoning board of adjustment decision that stopped it from finishing a controversial LED sign on Downtown's Grant Street Transportation Center.

"This is an issue that is coming up nationally," said Anne Marie Lubenau, president of the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh, who spoke at the meeting. "While the LED signs are, in one sense, just a different type of technology for billboards, they do have different characteristics," like changing images, that create safety and aesthetic concerns.

"Billboards by their nature are designed to divert your attention to them," said city planner Dan Sentz. "Your directional traffic signs and traffic lights are going to have some difficult competition" if one or more electronic signs are placed nearby.

Electronic signs weren't an issue in the city for years, as Lamar worked with city officials to trade scores of vinyl billboards for a dozen LED signs near the Boulevard of the Allies, Bigelow Boulevard, Banksville Road, the Parkway East and other roads.

Then, in February, news broke that Lamar got a permit -- without public hearings or votes -- to put a 19-by-58-foot sign on the Pittsburgh Parking Authority's new transportation center.

Five City Council members challenged the permit. Lamar sued them. Former Urban Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Pat Ford resigned following news that he got Christmas gifts from a Lamar executive.

Last month, the zoning board nixed the sign, on a tie vote that has the effect of denying Lamar's request for special permission to build a bigger- and higher-than-normal billboard where new signs aren't usually allowed.

Lamar's appeal argues that the permit was properly granted based on an established vinyl-for-digital swap process, and that the company relied on it when it spent well over $1.3 million on the unique, curved sign. The case hasn't been assigned to a judge.

Last year, two council members introduced competing ordinances that would govern future electronic billboards. Neither has come up for the planning commission vote that would precede a council vote.

The first, by Councilman Bruce Kraus, would have council vote on all new electronic billboards. Planning staff has recommended against that.

The second, by Councilman Ricky Burgess, won the staff's nod of approval. It would bar flashing images, animation or rotation of ads any more often than once every four or five seconds. It would give the zoning board a vote on any electronic sign, and bar the signs from any area that's not zoned for industry or commerce, and from any spot that's within 500 feet of another billboard.

"I'd like to see those options expanded and see some more public commentary on those options," said Ms. Lubenau. "Is one option to say, we simply aren't going to allow them?"

At last week's meeting, city planner Jason Kambitsis cited San Antonio, Texas, which has adopted a formula that demands the removal of as many as 19 vinyl signs for one digital replacement.

Tony Ceoffe, executive director of the group Lawrenceville United, wants the city to consider allowing neighborhood negotiation with sign companies.

Last week, he wrote to council and administration officials, stating that the legislation might give Lamar the right to put electronic signs "on virtually every other block in our [Butler Street] business district," where there are now 45 conventional billboards in a 28-block stretch.

Mr. Kraus said that when the legislation returns to council, he "will raise the issue of safety and we have a large amount of research on it."

"We've written the best law we can," Mr. Burgess said. "Certainly, as it goes through, as reasonable people, we'll listen to diverging arguments."