Orange Votes New Ordinance in Battle With Billboard Agency

In its continuing dispute with an Illinois advertising firm, the City Council of Orange passed a temporary ordinance Monday to prevent the company from erecting 11 billboards along the Orange Freeway and on Chapman and Tustin avenues.

The action came after city attorneys last week won a temporary reprieve from a federal court order requiring the city to issue billboard construction permits to National Advertising Co., pending an appeal.

The 45-day ordinance, which takes effect immediately, reinstates the size and location regulations of the original ordinance banning billboards, which U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter found unconstitutional last August. National Advertising had challenged the law in a 1985 federal lawsuit, contending that it violated constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech.

The city appealed Hatter’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the matter in early March. On March 16, Hatter reinstated his ruling and found the city in contempt of court. The judge imposed a $10,000 fine for not complying with his order to issue the permits, plus $1,000 for each day permits were not processed.

Council members have refused to approve National Advertising’s applications despite the judge’s ruling, because the proposed billboards would violate the city’s ordinance on the size and location of signs, regulations that city attorneys have argued are unrelated to freedom of speech.

Mayor Jess F. Perez said attorney Bradley C. Withers, who represents Orange in the case, advised the council that the $1,000-a-day fine no longer applies as long as the stay, granted by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, is in effect.

Attorney Gary Mobley, representing National Advertising, said he has yet to receive a copy of the stay, but questioned whether the daily fine has been suspended, saying the temporary reprieve granted by the appeals court was “extremely narrow” and did not overrule Hatter’s contempt-of-court finding.

“It doesn’t allow them to avoid their obligation to issue the permits,” Mobley said.

After the council met with Withers in executive session for more than an hour Monday, Perez said that “the urgency ordinance embraces the notion that we will not prohibit billboards, but will still evaluate conditions under which we will issue permits.”