By Dennis Hathaway, Ban Billboard Blight
Given the opportunity of a TV interview to discuss the propriety of a plan to sell space in L.A. city parks for commercial ads, Barry Sanders, president of the Recreation and Parks Commission, adopted the tone of an authoritarian parent addressing slightly dimwitted children and proceeded to explain why critics–including a city council member and the city attorney’s office- misunderstood almost everything about the plan that first surfaced last fall when the commission voted to allow Warner Bros. to put images from its upcoming “Yogi Bear” movie in three of the city’s most popular parks.
The commission rescinded that action after Councilman Paul Koretz invoked a seldom-used city charter provision that allows the city council to veto actions of charter commissions. Despite this about-face, Sanders told a reporter for KCET’s “SoCal Connected series” last week that even though the images Warner Bros. was going to place on fences, light standards, building walls and picnic tables throughout the parks were identical to images used in the movie’s marketing campaign, they weren’t advertising anything and therefore the objections raised by Koretz and community members were misplaced.
Sanders, a retired partner at Latham & Watkins, one of L.A.’s largest and most politically influential law firms, also dismissed the opinion of the city attorney’s office that the signs would violate the city’s ban on new off-site advertising. Because the Yogi Bear images were simply recognizing a corporate gift to city parks–a gift netting the city the grand sum of $46,636–Sanders argued that they fell into the category of “government speech” and therefore were exempt from regulations governing commercial signage. The interviewer, Brian Rooney, pointed out that the Yogi Bear signs were to be displayed for four weeks leading up to the movie’s opening, and that Warner Bros. has apparently lost interest in making this “gift” to the parks now that the movie has aired. Despite those facts, Sanders didn’t waver in his expressed conviction that the park images had absolutely nothing to do with luring parents and children to buy tickets to the movie.
This alternate view of what many might consider common-sense reality extends far beyond the stillborn Yogi Bear scheme.
Why don’t we make the Mayor wear a Yogi Bear suit and emblazon the latest advertisemnt, Latham & Watkins want on his empty dumb head. With all his travels, the companies will get their money’s worth.
And Starrett, next time I see you in City Hall, better be wearing a skirt with all the ads you shove down our community’s throats. At the least it should have the AEG logo.
Look it, this is nothing to kid about. I go to city parks almost every day to walk my dogs. The thought of being face to face with advertising in these small bits of green space is terrifying to me. Where is my right to quiet enjoyment? Oh yeah, now the government has to exercise its right to “speech.” Are the signs going to be from the Los Angeles city or from a major commercial interest? Give me a break.
In defending my community through the years, I have run up against Latham & Watkins. They find ways around our laws that can make your head spin. While Sanders no longer works for the firm – he still collects about $400,000 pension benefits (said on SoCal connected) so where is his impartiality?
His arrogance is just the start of what I think of his ability to twist the laws to benefit a select few over the very people he’s supposed to serve.
And has anyone noticed that the Board of Recreation and Parks Commissioners under Barry Sanders frequently fails to conduct its regular meetings on the date and time adopted as the regular meeting time?
Instead, he routinely uses 24 hour notices like the CRA used when it wanted to sneak $1 billion of CRA into the treasury of the City to hide it from Governor Brown.
Latham — The sleaziest of the sleaze.