Orange Asks California Cities to Help Pay for Court Billboard Battle

Contending that every city’s right to regulate signs is threatened, Orange Mayor Jess F. Perez has asked mayors around the state to help finance his city’s court battle with an Illinois billboard company.

So far, only one city has responded to the appeal. On Tuesday, the Laguna Beach City Council voted 5 to 0 to donate $2,500 to Orange’s defense.

Perez started by writing to Orange County’s 25 mayors, asking them to help his city defend itself in a lawsuit over billboards brought by the National Advertising Co. And on Thursday, arguing that the issue affects the whole state, Perez said he has expanded his letter-writing campaign to include every city in California.

City Loses Rulings

For the last two years, the City of Orange has been on the losing end of an acrimonious dispute with National Advertising over the city’s anti-billboard ordinance.

In July, 1985, the company sued Orange after it refused to allow the firm to erect 11 billboards in prominent locations around the city and along the Orange Freeway. This March, a federal judge sided with the billboard company, declaring the city’s sign ordinance unconstitutional, finding the City of Orange in contempt of court and ordering it to pay a $10,000 fine.

Perez said Thursday that he is hoping to raise as much as $100,000 to finance the city’s continuing legal battle, including a hearing this July before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Perez said he also has asked the League of California Cities for legal help.

“I firmly believe our case is the case of every city in the state,” he said. “The appeal that we are financing . . . is the protection we believe we are entitled to under our local control ordinance and empowered to adopt under state law.”

Concern Expressed

His letter to the mayors expresses that concern.

“Because this case goes to the very heart of local control of billboards and sign-ordinance provisions, any final decision resulting from this litigation will have a financial impact on a very large number of California cities,” Perez wrote. The City of Orange needs “any and all political, legal and moral support possible.”

The federal court ruling is “a threat to all communities,” Laguna Beach Mayor Neil Fitzpatrick said Thursday. “Even beyond California, it’s a threat because it’s in federal court.”

Officials of half a dozen other Orange County cities said they were interested in Orange’s plight but had not yet reviewed its request. “It’s a very serious matter,” Santa Ana City Manager David Ream said of the billboard fight. But Ream said he did not know if his city would be contributing any money to Orange.

Newport Delays Action

Newport Beach City Manager Robert Wynn said the request has not yet been placed on an agenda. Wynn said council members were not likely to vote on it until they understood how much money Orange wanted.

“We’d be happy to contribute a dollar,” Wynn said. Beyond that, Wynn said, he didn’t know.

At the League of California Cities office in Sacramento, officials said their board of directors is not expected to review Perez’s request for another week. But Bob Donek, executive director of the league’s Orange County division, said Perez will be discussing the billboard suit at the group’s meeting next Thursday.

“They’d like the time, and we’re glad to give it to them,” Donek said. “It would be a very significant issue to consider--about home rule and the ability of cities to regulate land-use.”

Company Files Suit

National Advertising sued Orange on July 29, 1985, after the firm was denied permission to erect the 11 billboards along the Orange Freeway and on Chapman and Tustin avenues. According to Perez’s letter, the billboards violated a city sign ordinance and were “too large, too high and in the wrong location.”

But U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. has repeatedly rejected the city’s view. In August, 1986, Hatter declared the city’s sign ordinance an unconstitutional violation of free speech. Reiterating that, Hatter in March found the city in contempt of court, fined it $10,000 for failing to issue permits for the billboards and ordered an additional $1,000-a-day penalty for each day the permits weren’t processed.

On April 2, however, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear the case and stayed portions of Hatter’s order. The City of Orange must still pay the $10,000 fine and another $5,000 in fees to National’s attorneys, however, and did so this week, Perez said.

Orange City Attorney Furman B. Roberts estimated that his city has spent about $35,000 so far on the suit.

In a related action, the Orange City Council on April 6 passed an emergency ordinance setting new limits on the size, height and location of billboards. The city then issued permits for National’s 11 contested billboards, City Manager J. William Little said.

But Little added that the city “immediately put a hold on them” because they allegedly were not the proper size or in the right location. Little said he expected National to contest that, and “I suspect next week we’ll very likely be back in a judge’s courtroom.”