Showdown at City Hall: Billboard Blight or Moratorium

The warning signs are clear: The City Council and the mayor have no stomach to take on their benefactors -- the billboard companies -- who they gave away the city to even after they won a lawsuit to stop the visual blight of electronic and illegal signage.

Only you can put the fear of the people in them. And they are worried about a rebellion. On Tuesday, the council met for an hour to talk about the billboard problem -- behind closed doors because it's none of your business -- but didn't disclose what conclusion they reached or whether they violated the open meetings law by talking about the moratorium.

Visit Dennis Hathaway's Ban Billboard Blight website and read what Westside community activist Barbara Broide commented heer today on last week's article Scandal at City Hall  

Below you will find the email addresses of city officials to bombard before Wednesday's City Council meeting where the issue is on the agenda. Let them know you're not going to take it anymore.

By Barbara Broide

All citizens of Los Angeles have an opportunity to be heard tomorrow 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.)

councilmember.reyes@lacity.org    councilmember.greuel@lacity.org  councilmember.zine@lacity.org      councilmember.labonge@lacity.org, councilmember.weiss@lacity.org     councilmember.cardenas@lacity.org, councilmember.alarcon@lacity.org     councilmember.parks@lacity.org, councilmember.wesson@lacity.org     councilmember.smith@lacity.org, councilmember.garcetti@lacity.org      councilmember.rosendahl@lacity.org, councilmember.huizar@lacity.org   councilmember.hahn@lacity.org    Jan.Perry@lacity.org, mayor@lacity.org