One can only hope that the feds have bugs and wiretaps all over City Hall these days as they cut dirty deals to trash the city by approving
a bunch of digital billboards as favors for Phil Anschutz’ Staples Center and L.A. Live and others who give so often and so generously to their campaigns.
Item 39 on today’s City Council agenda is an element in this conspiracy to undermine the public interest: File No. 08-2893, Closed Session “to confer with legal counsel relative to the case entitled World Wide Rush LLC vs City of Los Angeles.”
This is the federal civil rights case brought by — and won by — billboard companies against the city claiming regulations on signs were done in a manner that violated their right to free speech. It was no accident the city turned offensive billboard advertising into a free speech issue.
That’s right. The nation’s highest paid city officials — from the mayor on down to the lowly City Council members — lost this case and opened the door to the virtually unlimited visual blight of giant digital electronic billboards wherever the companies want to put them.
For nearly seven weeks now, the settlement of this case has been continued week after week and it will be continued again today
Dragging out the case is part of a City Hall conspiracy to delay imposing a moratorium on new digital billboards until next year while deals are being cut to get new ones approved for favored contributors before the moratorium takes effect.
“They need to close the free speech loophole they created before they can put in the ban or the billboard companies will punch holes in it,” said a well-placed source.
“They need time for the mayor’s economic development arm to work out deals with the lobbyists so they won’t do anything until the horses are out of the barn.”
If that isn’t a crime, given the huge sums of money involved, what the
Illinois governor is accused of doing was just a smart business scheme
n tough economic times.
The digital billboard scandal was one of the issues cited by Jane Ellison-Usher in her letter of resignation (Jane UsherResignation.pdf) as head of the City Planning Commission on Thursday. In the letter and a Curbed LA interview,
Usher was all class about it, just as Nick Patsaouras was in resigning
as head of the DWP board, but behind the scenes she faced the choice of
becoming part of the scandal or walking away with her head held high
that she did all she could on behalf of the people and the city.
With
courage shown by only a handful of city commissioners or elected
officials, Usher repeatedly had challenged the destructive development
policies the mayor and his colleagues are using to destroy the quality
of life in L.A. A month ago, she engineered unanimous approval of a
proposed ordinance to impose a six-month moratorium on new billboards
and conversions of existing ones to the obnoxious electronic variety.
Anti-billboard crusader Dennis Hathaway raised the issue this week of what was going on in an article headlined “Is the L.A. City Council Fiddling While Rome Burns?“
“Despite the fact that more than 50 applications for new digital billboards are pending in
the city building department, the six-month moratorium…hasn’t even been
scheduled for a city council committee hearing,” Hathaway wrote.
“The
Interim Control Ordinance (ICO) establishing the moratorium was
transmitted to the council’s Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM)
committee on Nov. 25. That committee, chaired by Councilman Ed Reyes,
didn’t take up the ICO at its Dec. 2 meeting, nor is it on the agenda
of the next meeting, Dec. 9. No further meetings are on the city
calendar before the council recesses for the holidays.”
Understand
that 101 digital billboards are already approved, many of them in
Council President Eric Garcetti’s district, including one in Silver
Lake where the community uproar threatens to sabotage his campaign to
succeed Xavier Becerra in Congress.
What wouldn’t Garcetti do to
get that billboard removed in exchange for others in Hollywood or
around L.A. Live? What wouldn’t he and his colleagues do to approve the
massive digital billboard plan for the Convention Center if they could
raise a few million bucks to help cover the massive budget deficit they
caused with their sweetheart deals and giveaways?
Remember the
city won the original case upholding its regulation of billboards but then City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, in complicity with others in
City Hall, destroyed their ability to enforce the ordinance by cutting
deals with the biggest billboard companies.
None of this is an accident.
It
is pure pay-to-play but don’t hold your breath for anyone to take a
fall. The fine art of political corruption was honed here. It will take
a revolution to change L.A. and bring open and honest government to the
city and leaders who put the public interest ahead of the special
interests..
The Governor of Illinois is a piker compared to our Mayor and City Council in my opinion. And he will be indicted by the US Government. I think we have to call in the FBI, yes, I do.
Most of these are in Weiss and Rosendahlk’s districts. Weiss has been good on this, as has Garcetti (who only has one in his district), as have Greuel. Besides that, it is slow going but a huge breakthrough is Reyes’ motion today with Weiss and Garcetti for digital conversion prohibition. Rumor has it that Garcetti is working with state legislator for statewide ban, too. We need weiss in there as city attorney before corrupt delgadillo goes to jail!
Here’s and idea.
(See light bulb go on.)
Let’s get together and buy an electronic billboard and advertise just what sleaze balls our council and mayor are.
We can spell out all their dirty dealings in brilliant colored lights, and ask one final question:
If banning billboards is not a free speech offense in other cities where they’ve banned them, why is it in L.A.?
We need the FBI to invetsigate the sordid money of Billboard companies in City Hall. They may find other monies too. No more business as usual.
Ron keep us posted on the latest on this issue.
All citizens of Los Angeles have an opportunity to be heard tomorrow (Wed., Dec. 17, after 11: 15 am) at a City Council meeting that will consider passage of the Interim Control Ordinance (ICO) on an OFF-SITE SIGN MORATORIUM. This would hopefully halt all new off-site signs, digital conversions and placement of supergraphic signs on buildings (the new frontier in the off-site advertising industry’s horizon). (These supergraphics are not permitted in much of the City but the City has been unable to force their removal even though many of the signs create significant fire hazards and endanger the occupants of the buildings involved.)
The City Planning Commission passed this urgency ICO motion in November and PLUM has just waived consideration and sent it directly to Council for a vote. As an urgency measure, it needs 12 votes to pass so all concerned citizens should contact their councilmember and all the councilmembers to voice their support for the ICO.
Whether you are “for” or “against” off-site signs, a new ordinance that is enforceable is urgently needed to keep the City out of court every time it attempts to do some enforcement. Imagine the cost of fighting all the currently pending lawsuits, alone. (There may be over two dozen such suits, which often result in private (secret) settlements made far from the public’s eye.) Even the City Attorney’s office is in favor of a moratorium and opportunity to write a new off-site sign ordinance as they face endless lawsuits and cannot enforce what remains of the City’s 2002 off-site sign ordinance. That ordinance’s enforcement has been hobbled by litigation, secret settlements, inconsistent City programs like the street furniture program… leaving the City unprotected from the profit-minded outdoor advertising industry–whose only concern is their own bottom line and the ability to raise income at any and all costs. (So you have a 24-hour digital sunrise in your bedroom? So, your kid was maimed in an accident as a result of a distracted driver watching a digital billboard? Ever tried to sell a home with a ditigal billboard in your backyard? Much to ponder. The City needs time from the moratorium to get its house in order.)
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