Tactics of Billboard Firm Are Questioned : Lobbying: Seeking to get Anaheim to overturn a freeway sign ban, the company is circulating recommendation letters from six groups.

Attempting to get the City Council to overturn a long-standing ban on freeway billboards, a sign company is circulating recommendation letters from six city charities and businesses.

But several of the groups have questioned the tactics of the billboard firm, saying the letters no longer reflect their opinions or were solicited with misleading information.

Regency Outdoor Advertising Inc., a Los Angeles firm that wants to erect 15 billboards along Anaheim freeways and which lost similar battles in 1986 and 1988, has recently been passing to the council and the press letters from the groups.

The letters, which range from 1 month to 3 years old, praise the project and the company’s plan to give two months’ free advertising annually to the charities and preferential treatment to Anaheim businesses.

Brian Kennedy, the company’s president, said he believed the letters still reflected the organizations’ views when he and his adviser, high-powered lobbyist Frank Elfend, released them this week and says he was in recent contact with five of the six organizations.

“And they all basically stood behind their letters,” he said, adding: “I wouldn’t say I called them if I hadn’t.”

He denied misleading anyone.

But in phone interviews last week, administrators at the Salvation Army say they were misled by Kennedy’s company, and the Anaheim Family YMCA and KEZY radio station said their organizations’ letters were written more than two years ago and their feelings have since changed.

“If they are passing this off as the station’s current position, that bothers me,” said Miles Sexton, vice president and general manager of Anaheim-based KEZY.

He said the station’s former owner, Tim Sullivan, sold the station to Win Communications shortly after he wrote the letter in May, 1989, supporting the billboard company. “No one contacted us about this letter, and I don’t know enough about this issue to have an opinion,” Sexton said.

Kennedy said he recently placed calls to the station, but they were never returned.

Michael Larkin, general director of Anaheim Family YMCA, said that while the offer of free advertising is still agreeable, he is no longer sure whether the YMCA utilizes billboard advertising. Further, he said that, on reflection, he is not sure the organization would want to be involved in a potentially controversial issue.

“I’m not sure the (YMCA’s) board would want to be pushing for something that has a lot of negative community support,” he said.

Kennedy said he recently talked to Larkin or someone else at the YMCA and got their permission to release the letter.

Warren Johnson, the business manager of the Salvation Army’s Orange County operations, said Regency led his group to believe that the billboards were already approved and that the company was simply offering free space to it and other charities.

The Salvation Army’s letter, written last April by its former county commander, was in support of that idea and nothing more, Johnson said. He said Kennedy called him two weeks ago and then again Friday morning, after Kennedy learned that a reporter was asking about the letters.

“We were surprised to learn that our letter has been thrown in with a group of others in support of overturning an ordinance,” Johnson said. “The Salvation Army does not get involved in politics, and we would not get involved with supporting or opposing a billboard ordinance. We might have to walk away from this.”

Kennedy said he spoke to Johnson and thought he understood what the letter would be used for.

Elfend, an influential local lobbyist hired by Regency after its last loss, said the letters were his idea but that they were solicited by Kennedy, who told him that he had contacted the groups recently to make sure that their positions had not changed. Elfend has never lost a key vote while representing several developers before the Anaheim council and is one of the largest campaign contributors to council members.

Michael J. Sofia, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Anaheim, said he wrote his support letter a month ago after being contacted by Kennedy. He said his group is trying to raise funds for a permanent building and desperately needs the free advertising offered.

“I saw this as a way to solicit more funds and help our kids,” he said.

Gerald J. Garner, chairman of American Commerce National Bank, said he wrote his letter two years ago, but he doesn’t remember why he wrote it or who asked him to. He said he still supports erecting the billboards, however, although he says he has never met or spoken with Kennedy.

Kennedy says he spoke to Garner two weeks ago.

“I don’t understand this,” Kennedy said.

Calls to Anaheim Mazda about its letter were not returned.

According to Regency proposal, the billboards would be erected in industrial sections of the city along the Santa Ana, Riverside and Orange freeways. Regency is scheduled to make a presentation to the City Council next week, but it will be some time before the council votes.

The city banned freeway billboards in the 1960s after some residents complained that they were a blight. Regency’s previous attempts to overturn the ordinance were rejected after long council debates and in the face of vocal public opposition to freeway billboards.