For once, the City Planning Commission did the right thing — nothing.
David Zahniser reports the commision met for four hours in the morning, took a break for lunch, and then resumed their meeting but still could reach a decision on a new billboard ordinance.
For good reason, the city has made such a mess of the situation, there isn’t any way to fix without getting to the root of the problem: 4,000 illegal billboards, Jack Weiss’ legislative bungling, incompetent legal representation of CIty Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and a know-nothing City Council that does what it’s told without thinking.
Here’s some free advice to the commission: Get a real lawyer for yourselves, don’t listen to the mayor and the lobbyists and do what’s right to make LA a liveable city.
I had no doubt that will mean putting aside all talk of future policy and vote to approve a lengthy moratorium on all billboards while the question of all the illegal billboards is resolved.
Clearly, the billboard mess shows no one in City Hall knows what they are doing or has the honor to do what’s right and necessary.
s.n.a.f.u.
The Planning Commission was a disgrace.
The best way for LA to reduce the budget deficit is to get rid of the numerous do-nothing commissions we have. Most commission positions pay $90,000 and up for what are in most cases, part time jobs. It is in essence a patronage system packed with cronies of the Mayor. These positions are doled out to those that favors are owed to, such a termed-out hacks from other political seats. Have observed the North Valley Planning commission hearings and never seen such a clueless bunch. No experience or knowledge required for commission positions- APPLY TODAY!
Fixing the billboard issue is a race against time. Until the public is fully engaged (read that outraged) it’s hard to build the pressure downtown. Activists are doing their part, but it takes people being personally and negatively impacted to speak up. Frankly, most don’t have a clue what’s headed their way. And, until they do, we will see more of what happened yesterday.
I must confess. As much as I try to follow local events, it wasn’t until a few days ago that I learned that 3 sided, free-standing billboards are about to placed on city sidewalks as part of “street furniture.” I saw one directly in front of a McDonalds in Encino and was shocked. Checked with local Council Office and learned the bad news.
Unfortunately, those area planning commissions have the most say over what goes on in your neighborhood. You can call them do-nothing ignoramuses, but they are your decision makers. The Planning Commission will rarely go against them. It’s rumored that the one in the north valley is the absolute worst one in the city. They are a developers delight and the developers are the commissioners in that part of the valley. Even the other area commissions complain about that one. If your councilmember likes development, that is what your planning commissioners will like.
The Central Area Planning Commission is also a strong contender for “clueless”.
The most logical step would be to get the “illegal” billboards down. The advertising dollar comes rolling in to the billboard companies as long as there is something posted on any billboard. As long as the companies can continue using the illegal ones, they don’t have much of a “down-side” to the situation.
The city needs to enforce with whatever they have in their “arsenal” of enforcement tools- and maybe they need some thoght in that respect so that something is there that has an impact.
The income-dollars arising from illegal billboards needs to be made reachable for penalties, “ill-gotten gains” that companies keep without complying with the law, should be made subject to dislodging and forfeiture in some manner, having been earned while violating a specific bans on a billboard that generated the money.
But all that is the way that some control could be accomplished. Adjustments to account for the inevitable defenses raised to such enforcement needs to be anticipated and addressed. But that’s a better way to have government work for you than just jacking up parking rates at meters, not to mention the hardware investment that it required for credit cards, and get the real culprits and violators, and not literally exploit the people that have to park and the businesses that try to attract customers and don’t have large parking lots as bigger eommercial enterprises do.
City Council members like to get the low-hanging fruit, the easy-shots, the common people, and as with crime, avoid the real impact-creating components, or, like here, just bungle it all up.
As a note: It was priceless last year to see Garcetti so frustrated with the “report” given to him by a city rep. who essentially blew him off when asked for a report of the billboards- legal and illegal. The urgency of the matter only showed on Garcetti, and the rep. seemed like a regular, a joe-blow city worker who only knew he didn’t have enough time to get to it until the spring of ’09- and THAT levelled Eric down to the regular frustrated constituent’s experience in dealing with the city. The impact was bad, of course, but it was nice to see Garcetti getting bumped off his Ivory Tower for a change.
The commissioners are appointed by the Mayor. They are supposed to be an independent citizen body, a bulwark between the politicians and citizens to protect citizen rights and interests. In Los Angeles, except for a handful of commissioners, they are mostly stooges of the politicians and protectors of development rights. That said, in a large city, most citizens cannot afford to attend the numerous public meetings on each issue.
This is where the neighborhood councils should be playing a greater role. At least one member should be available to attend these meetings. There were a handful at the Billboard meeting. Where were the remaining 70+. Most likely, posting their pathetic stories on “Citywatch”, thinking they have done their part. Fighting the political machine requires more than being scribes on a newsletter that hardly anyone reads. Particpate till it hurts or accept the inevitable of complacency and don’t complain.
We need to take all the time we spend on things like billboards and get outraged about the crime and violence in this city.
Measure B FAILED – MEASURE “BAD” FAILED
Charter Amendment And Ordinance Proposition B – Solar Energy And Job Creation Program
YES 129,925 49.50%
NO 132,569 50.50%
City Clerk – Certified Results – March 3, 2009 Primary as of March 19.
http://161.149.221.240/clk/elections/clkelections52458979_03192009.pdf
Stuck in the 3rd world should not be allowed to make false comments about city commissions. Is that how you ran your paper Ron?
NO commission gets paid one thin dime except for the Board of Public Works. Ask around. No planning commissioner gets paid. No DWP commissioner gets paid. No airport commissioner gets paid. No BONC commissioner gets paid.
So why did 3rd world dweller just make that up?
Crime and violence in the city, a result of socio-economic conditions and drug gangs, unfortunately is here to stay, unless the underlying causes are removed. The billboard blight, meanwhile, is a problem created by our politicians and coroporate greed, and the problem easily cured, if we can come up with a meaningful billboard ordinance.
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