Anaheim’s Billboard Foes Savor a Victory, but War’s Far From Over
About 60 phone calls from outraged residents and a City Council member’s change of heart last week halted plans for more billboards along freeways through Anaheim, but both sides say the decades-long battle isn’t over.
Even as Councilwoman Miriam Kaywood said she hoped the issue was dead, billboard company advocate Floyd L. Farano predicted otherwise, despite two defeats in as many years. And both sides say the struggle between the billboard industry and its foes will continue not only locally but in Sacramento and Washington.
Billboard company officials and their critics say the battle in Anaheim has symbolic importance. Millions of dollars are at stake nationally for an industry bent on growth at a time when fewer and fewer sites are available for billboards. And Anaheim, Orange County’s largest city, is typical of the kind of place where billboard companies compete fiercely for available sites and want to expand.
Access to Decision Makers
Billboard industry officials acknowledge that campaign contributions, which became an issue in Anaheim last week, are part of their strategy. But they insist that the money merely ensures access to decision makers.
“You don’t buy votes with the money, but you do get a chance to give your side of the story,” said Ron Cipriani, director of public affairs at Foster & Kleiser, the largest U.S. billboard firm, with more than 40,000 signs nationwide. (A division of Metromedia Inc., the firm was sold last week to a Pennsylvania businessman for $710 million.)
Sometimes, the industry’s political strategy works.
Billboard firms have won concessions one sign at a time in cities such as Santa Ana and Westminster, while bigger battles are still being waged in Sacramento and Washington.
For example, last year the Santa Ana City Council granted zoning variances for two new billboards along the Garden Grove Freeway against the advice of the city’s planning staff.
Contributions to Council Members
And about three years ago, the Westminster council took similar action for three billboards along the same freeway, against the advice of the city planners.
Nobody has attributed such votes to campaign contributions, but mandatory finance disclosure records show that billboard firms contributed to several council members before the permits were granted.
And the billboard industry has contributed more money to council members in Anaheim than to anyone else in Orange County, including the Orange County Board of Supervisors, according to campaign reports.
In 1985, billboard firms or their employees contributed a total of about $10,000 to three of the five Anaheim council members, with the largest amount, $5,750, going to Mayor Don Roth. Roth has said it was natural for him to receive more contributions because he is running a costly campaign for Ralph Clark’s seat on the Board of Supervisors.
No figures were available to show how much money the industry has spent on city council members and members of county boards throughout the state. But four major billboard firms and a statewide billboard industry group, the California Outdoor Advertising Assn., have contributed a total of more than $300,000 to state lawmakers since 1981, according to Legi-Tech, a campaign finance reporting service in Sacramento.
Legislators received about $121,000 from the association, $103,575 from Foster & Kleiser, $13,941 from Gannett and $8,200 from Regency Outdoor Advertising Inc., the firm that proposed lifting Anaheim’s ban on freeway signs.
At the federal level, the billboard industry is second only to tobacco firms in the amount of money paid to congressmen as honorariums for speeches and guest appearances at industry trade meetings: a total of $99,629 in 1984, according to Common Cause, a national citizens watchdog organization.
For example, House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr., U. S. Sen. Gary Hart (D. Colo.), House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.), Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Merced) and other members of Congress were guests at a recent Palm Springs retreat sponsored by the national Outdoor Advertising Assn. and the billboard industry’s two biggest clients, tobacco firms and liquor distillers. Each lawmaker received a $1,000 honorarium for attending the event.
In Congressional hearings, billboard firms are seeking $5 million in federal highway money as compensation for billboards they must remove. They are asking also for rules prohibiting state and local transit authorities from restricting billboard sites, and a minimum $20,000 per sign in removal costs, regardless of the actual expenses involved, said Edward McMahon, a Washington-based lawyer for the National Coalition for Scenic Beauty, an anti-billboard group.
The industry also is trying to block passage of a Senate bill that would prohibit the removal of highway plants such as trees and shrubs for billboards.
In Sacramento, billboard firms have lined up in support of a measure by Assemblyman Louis J. Papan (D-Millbrae) that would require Caltrans to cut back plants obstructing views of freeway billboards for a distance of 500 feet.
Meanwhile, the California Transportation Commission recently voted to reduce funding for freeway landscaping by 60% because of anticipated cuts in federal highway subsidies, an action that could indirectly benefit billboard firms.
When state officials formally designate a freeway to be landscaped, they have 2 1/2 years under state law to finish the job, or the highway becomes eligible for billboards. The same rule applies to landscaped freeways that are being repaired and where the vegetation must be replanted after construction work.
Environmentalists charge that the billboard firms quietly supported the cutback in landscaping funds, knowing that they could take advantage of the delays in landscaping projects.
“That’s nonsense,” said Orange County Supervisor Bruce Nestande, chairman of the state Transportation Commission and a candidate for lieutenant governor. “That didn’t happen at all. That issue was never raised by anybody, and the issue was before us for more than a year and a half. And if for some reason there was an attempt to use this to increase the number of billboards, I’m sure we would do something about it; I’m a billboard hater if there ever was one.”
Meanwhile, officials from several Orange County cities said that sometimes the billboard industry is hurt by its own internal rivalries.
In Anaheim, for example, Councilman E. Llewellyn Overholt Jr. sided against Regency’s bid for more freeway signs partly because Foster & Kleiser failed to support the measure. The ordinance would have also hiked business license fees more than 100% for all billboard companies and would have allowed more freeway signs at the expense of billboards at city intersections.
Although Regency thought the trade-offs worthwhile, “It just wasn’t economically feasible for Foster & Kleiser,” Cipriani said.
And, referring to campaign contributions, Cipriani said:
“We give to people who are pro-business. . . . We get shut down more than anything else. But you don’t hear about that very much. And you don’t hear about the $4 million in public service goods and advertising we give away to organizations such as the American Heart Assn.”
Called Small Minority
Generally, industry officials claim a small vocal minority opposed to billboards is responsible for many of the toughest, local anti-billboard ordinances, including the one in Anaheim.
Even Anaheim’s staunchest billboard opponents admit that their late, disorganized blitz of about 60 phone calls to City Council members last week hardly constituted a major citizen protest.
It was enough, however, to help convince Mayor pro tem Irv Pickler, a candidate for mayor, to withdraw his support of Regency’s bid for more freeway signs.
“The only thing that stopped the measure from passing was the publicity,” said Ann Bien, a billboard critic from Anaheim Hills. “It was going through the approval process so quickly that few people even knew about it until it was almost too late. But the people reacted to the publicity. That’s what did it for me. . . . I never get involved unless my ox is gored.”
