Anaheim : New Billboard Proposal to Be Considered Today

Under a proposal resurrected by a billboard company, Anaheim could become the first city in Orange County to allow billboards along the city’s freeways.

City Council members today will consider an ordinance similar to one they rejected in 1984.

Councilwoman Miriam Kaywood, the most vocal opponent of the proposal on the council, said the suggested ordinance would make Anaheim “look like billboard alley.”

Also opposing the proposed new law is the city’s staff.

Echoing previous strongly worded recommendations, Assistant Zoning Director Annika M. Santalahti wrote in a report: “It is the opinion of staff that the billboard industry struck a very good deal with Anaheim almost two decades ago when, in exchange for removing a few freeway billboards, many more were permitted to be constructed at arterial highway intersections throughout the city. Anaheim has continued to honor that agreement and has never attempted to modify the billboard ordinance to the detriment of the billboard industry.”

The issue of billboards resurfaced last September at the request of Regency Outdoor Inc. An attorney for the company told the council that the suggested ordinance, which would also increase billboard companies’ fees, would bring as much as $72,000 a year in new revenue to the city.

Kaywood called the $72,000 figure “a pittance” and said freeway billboards would “keep away good potential business. It couldn’t help. It could only hurt.”

If the City Council reverses its position and allows the billboards, Anaheim will become the first city in the county to have such a law on its books, Santalahti said.

Anaheim already has six freeway billboards on land that was annexed to the city from the county, Santalahti said. The city banned the billboards as part of its national beautification program in the 1960s.

With an unusually long agenda before it, the council today also is scheduled to decide, among other things, whether state lottery tickets should be sold at the Anaheim Convention Center. If the council approves the proposal, Anaheim will become the first city in the county to sell the tickets.

The city could get revenues of $29,000 to $408,000 from the ticket sales, according to a staff report. The State Lottery Commission has indicated preliminary approval of the city’s application for sales at the Convention Center.