ANAHEIM : Billboard Firm Urges End to Freeway Ban

Resuming a fight it began in 1986, a billboard company is again asking the City Council to reverse a 23-year-old city ban on freeway billboards and allow it to install 15 signs in the next 18 months.

Regency Outdoor Advertising Inc., a Los Angeles firm and a major contributor to council and mayoral campaigns, has asked to appear before the council Tuesday. It wants permission to erect the $100,000 billboards in industrial sections of the city, along three freeways. It has offered to pay Anaheim $30,000 a year as a fee, which would be used for graffiti removal and freeway landscaping.

However, the council cannot vote on Regency’s proposal Tuesday and would have to submit it to the Planning Department for review and a recommendation. Similar proposals, backed principally by Regency, were rejected by the council in 1986 and 1988 after complaints were lodged by residents opposed to freeway billboards.

Brian Kennedy, Regency’s president, said: “All I can say is that this is a terrific package and it will benefit the city of Anaheim.”

To help pave the way, Kennedy has hired Frank Elfend, a high-powered local lobbyist who has never lost a key vote in Anaheim while representing various developers.

In an attempt to sway the council, Elfend has persuaded the company to each year donate two months of free billboard space to the city and another two months to various nonprofit community groups. The donation is contingent on the city’s approving all the request.

“We told Mr. Kennedy that we didn’t think billboards would work in Anaheim unless the company was willing to give something back,” Elfend said.

A Times computer search of city campaign records show that Regency and its officers have donated $55,000 to City Council and mayoral campaigns since 1984. That is only $8,000 less than Disneyland has given.

Mayor Fred Hunter has received $12,700 from Regency, Councilman William D. Ehrle $12,800, Councilman Tom Daly $6,400, Councilman Irv Pickler $6,350 and Councilman Bob D. Simpson $3,300. Other candidates received the rest.

“I’ve given a lot of contributions to a lot of campaigns and not just in Anaheim,” Kennedy said. He declined to elaborate.

According to Annika Santalahti, city zoning administrator, there are about 140 billboards in the city but only six are along freeways. Five of those, including two owned by Regency, were in unincorporated areas annexed by the city and were allowed to remain, while the sixth is at Anaheim Stadium next to the Orange Freeway. Santalahti said that display was installed to cover the city’s cost of building the Amtrak train station at the stadium.

She said that until the late 1960s, the city allowed billboards along freeways almost without restraint but some residents considered them to be a blight. In a compromise with the city at the time, the billboard companies agreed to remove the freeway signs in return for being allowed a freer reign in other areas.