If I had the time, technology and knowhow, I could make an Oscar winning movie out of the council's amazing performance Wednesday as it sold off another chunk of the city to the man who already owns so much of L.A. -- Phil Anschutz.
Given how City Hall has handed Anschutz and his company AEG hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks, it's a wonder that it took 12 years to finalize a deal that Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller admitted was already a done deal when the terms of the Staples Center Project were being negotiated.
Frankly, the council session on this matter -- giving AEG the right to put more than 75 billboards and flashing electronic signs covering some 50,000 square feet of the L.A. Convention Center -- was as cynical and dishonest as any I've ever seen.
Only Bill Rosendahl questioned it and for one of the few times in recent memory broke the council's unanimity by casting the lose dissenting vote.
My words are nowhere near as compelling as he council's own so I've culled videos that capture what the lone wolf had to say, how Janice Hahn and others performed their deceitful roles and finally the indications that the $2 million a year from this visual blight is nothing compared to what this will cost for road improvements, neighborhood redevelopment and rebuilding the old wing of the Convention Center.
You be the judge of whether there is honor among thieves:
Video Exhibit 1: Would you be better off with Mayor Rosendahl?
Video Exhibit 2: How do Councilwoman Janice Hahn and CLA Gerry Miller keep a straight face?
Video Exhibit 3.
How $2 million in revenue required tens of millions in investment
Video Exhibit 4: GM Abassi suggests the old Convention Center doesn't meet AEG standards
Given how City Hall has handed Anschutz and his company AEG hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and tax breaks, it's a wonder that it took 12 years to finalize a deal that Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller admitted was already a done deal when the terms of the Staples Center Project were being negotiated.
Frankly, the council session on this matter -- giving AEG the right to put more than 75 billboards and flashing electronic signs covering some 50,000 square feet of the L.A. Convention Center -- was as cynical and dishonest as any I've ever seen.
Only Bill Rosendahl questioned it and for one of the few times in recent memory broke the council's unanimity by casting the lose dissenting vote.
My words are nowhere near as compelling as he council's own so I've culled videos that capture what the lone wolf had to say, how Janice Hahn and others performed their deceitful roles and finally the indications that the $2 million a year from this visual blight is nothing compared to what this will cost for road improvements, neighborhood redevelopment and rebuilding the old wing of the Convention Center.
You be the judge of whether there is honor among thieves:
Video Exhibit 1: Would you be better off with Mayor Rosendahl?
Video Exhibit 2: How do Councilwoman Janice Hahn and CLA Gerry Miller keep a straight face?
Video Exhibit 3.
How $2 million in revenue required tens of millions in investment
Video Exhibit 4: GM Abassi suggests the old Convention Center doesn't meet AEG standards
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the National Enquirer.
City Hall has, in effect, formed a partnership with a "preferred" citizen (i.e., major campaign contributor), to compete against billboard companies, and has given its own venture a huge advantage it denies to the billboard companies.
City Hall adopted regulations that all but prohibit commercial landowners and billboard companies from erecting new structures. But all AEG has to do is snap its fingers to get a special exemption from the laws that apply to everyone else.
The issue isn't billboards; the issue is equal treatment under the law. This is just plain wrong.
Once again Walter Moore proves himself to be a total idiot. As the City Attorney and Gerry Miller/ Chief Legislative Analyst stated in no uncertain terms, this deal was made 12 years ago as part of the original project. To renege now or to try to offer the space to other billboard companies would invite a lawsuit that the city wouldn't win. Rosendahl may be right that it's a bad deal for the city, which could have gotten more for the billboards now, but that's not an option. The options do apparently include allowing fewer and smaller billboards than AEG wants, and making sure that they don't pose safety hazards.
Walter Moore making other billboard companies out to be the innocent victims here shows he knows less than zero about the role the giants like ClearChannel/CBS Outdoors are playing and the extent to which they've gotten away without paying for upto 4000 illegal billboards, despite dummy Rocky negotiating DOWN by half the rate the Council imposed per billboard, when his patrons at ClearChannel protested. There have been numerous stories about this in the LA Weekly, LA Times, etc. (NOT one intelligent one in the Daily News, however, other than one just lamenting lost revenue if the companies aren't allowed to erect all the signs they want at their preferred rates.) Walter Moore is right only about one thing: that there have been cases where ClearChannel has gotten favorable treatment partly thanks to Rocky's favoritism, but also because they've outmaneuvered Jan Perry and Ed Reyes, using their proclivity to race and class-baiting against billboard blight activists. The two of them pushing through council a new Billboard District in her area a few months ago as a matter of "social justice" in the fact of opposition from callow rich people, because scofflaw ClearChannel offered to kick in a few bucks toward a park, was in fact something where the courts could and did point to as a case where "the city" chose to violate its own ban and therefore made the ban as currently written unenforcable. (See comment on the Billboard thread below, that I won't cut and paste due to length.) That's why a couple of Councilmembers are rewriting the ban to make it more enforcable, and are trying to educate the other council members about crossover ramifications.
I do think that some councilmembers, notably Reyes, Perry and Janice Hahn -- whose districts have blighted areas in general -- really don't care about the issue of aesthetics, or understand that ugly, tacky billboards in the more upmarket areas would just make them look more third-world, also. It's scary that this quality of life issue just doesn't register with them.
But that Walter sees this issue as a reason to cry on behalf of the billboard companies not getting to further undermine the will of communities shows how downright dangerously stupid and uninformed he is. As my fifth grade teacher used to say, "If you keep quiet about something you don't know, no one will be sure you're ignorant about it; but if you speak ignorantly, they'll know you are for sure." A word of advice Walter never learned.
If you and your boss had actually passed the bar exam, you would know better than to post silly statements like that.
Why don't you read the U.S. District Court's opinion about the supposedly "illegal" billboards, and then get back to us with your apology.
And nice try with the idea that the City is obligated by contract to amend the laws to create a special exception for AEG. Care to provide us with a link for that contract, and for the legal authority? I didn't think so.
City Hall routinely favors contributors over non-contributors. That's why AEG gets special exceptions the billboard companies don't, and why hotels at the airport are required to pay higher wages than hotels downtown. It's the same reason that some businesses get massive subsidies and tax cuts, and others must instead simply pay the taxes that fund those subsidies.
Unless and until we treat all employers fairly and equally, they will continue to flee our city. But career politicians don't care about others' jobs; they just care about their own, and will sell out the public interest to curry favor with their special interest contributors.
P.S. From Walter Moore to the angry staffer who has yet to pass the bar exam.
Here is a U.S. District Court opinion explaining why the City's unfair treatment is improper:
http://illegalsigns.ca/wp-content/uploads/metrolights.pdf
Care to call the judge a total idiot, too? Perhaps you should just stick to fetching breath strips.
First Rocky shills for the billboard companies which gave him $$ for his campaign, a half mil in free ads, and more. Now Walter. Hoping for the same sort of "thank you's," Walter? Meanwhile, keep putting your foot in it -- it's in upto your knees now.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Staffer Spin Manual: make groundless charges; hope the opponent will not notice or reply; and if called on it, try to change the subject.
I'm surprised the breath-strip fetcher didn't call me "racist" for citing the case that declared the city's billboard ordinance unconstitutional.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the "it's a staffer" b.s. whenever anyone calls him out on how dumb and utterly undeserving he is to run for Mayor or even NC Board member, at this rate. Maybe he can replace Boks as chief dog catcher.
It seems pretty clear to me... The City entered into what now appears to be a very lousy deal--from both the public policy and financial points of view. If the Council won't kill it, hopefully, it will not pass the environmental/planning reviews that are to come. Remember, other states are holding off on approving such signs based upon safety concerns (to say nothing of the gross amounts of energy they consume).
The signs should not be there. An agreement such as the one forged (likely in private without public input) should never be allowed. It undermines all regulation of signs across the City giving private vendors plenty of cause to bring legal action. And, with the current City Attorney, he will likely cook up some more sweetheart deals for this polluting bunch when they threaten or sue. But, back to the current situation with the Convention Center.
The Assistant City Attorney made mention of the best alternative yet: Don't put signs on the Convention Center at all. AEG did not want to have the City let the space to competing vendors but it doesn't require the City to let the space to AEG. Just say, no. If, however, the City is serious about negotiating a better deal with AEG, turn down the current plan. Stop the talks. Your constituents don't want the signs. There may be legal challenges. You've got plenty of reasons. End of discussion. Maybe when AEG totals up their expected proceeds over the next ten years they may find that it is reasonable to voluntarily offer a better deal to the City... one that assures a higher percentage of the take, one that increses with inflation (if inflation is greater than 3% per year), one that provides audit provisions so that we are certain that the City gets its fair share.... and so on.
Time and time again, we get the feeling that no one on the City staff (or Council) knows how to MAKE A DEAL. Perhaps it is time for the Mayor to call upon Monty Hall in nearby Beverly Hills to offer a staff/council training session. There are big dollars at stake here. Those of us who don't want to see these signs at any price, would feel a tiny bit better if the City received a decent cut of the multi million dollar. The agreement that AEG received for the City NOT to place any competing sign operators on the Convention Center structure is worth lots. We don't see the value of that guarantee in the current equation.
P.S. If any new digital/electronic billboards are allowed to be placed in the City prior to the release of the Highway Traffic Safety Administration study now underway, it should be stated that if the study's conclusion is that the signs do pose a safety hazard as many say, that they will have to be removed at their owner's expense... with no replacements or replacement locations to be offered or provided by the City. Opponents of digital billboards have cited safety concerns that have resulted in their ban in Texas and other locations. Los Angeles should wait until the safety studies have been completed. If the City does not wait and the signs are constructed, what mechanism will the City use to remove them? Certainly the City will not be able to afford to buy them out... We need our policy makers to protect the City's long term health and safety... not the bottom line of their campaign contributors. And people wonder why the citizens get turned off to government? This is an embarassment.
Oh, and by the way, if any of these signs are installed, I would aks the City to please include a condition of the project to be that AEG provides the DOT and LAPD with funds to establish an accident data gathering program (with funding to gather retrospective data going back at least three years)for the freeways and streets to be exposed to the changing message boards so that an assessment can be made of the accident rates and of possible impacts of the signs on driver behavior.
No billboards at all, sounds like a good deal.
This City's signage policy is totally FUBAR.
Convention center deal is a wreck, apparently tangled up with previous AEG contractual agreements (but doing nothing does sound like a plausible option).
The billboards destroying views and quality of life (especially those horrid electronic billboards) are souring many neighborhoods. (Did you see the recent billboards that went up in Bev Hills and Santa Monica? Me neither - there aren't any !)
And then in my own neighborhood a residence puts up a commercial advertising sign (for a psychic) on its lawn, the neighbors complain to the councilmember, and Building and Safety says (wait for it).... it's not illegal, we can't do any enforcement.
CITY IS BROKEN. We're fu--ed. I'm really pissed off. My City, WTF is going on??