WESTMINSTER : Advertising Sign Approval Left Intact

Hoping to head off a potential lawsuit by an outdoor advertising company, the City Council refused to overturn its decision allowing the company to erect a massive sign that angry residents say will be an eyesore.

During a 90-minute public hearing earlier this week, dozens of residents spoke against the 50-foot-high sign, saying it is more than twice the size permitted by city code and amounts to an unfair privilege.

“Our main reason we don’t want this sign is because it’s ugly,” said John York, spokesman for Westminster 2000, adding that members of the group would boycott any products advertised on the sign.

The company received permission early last year to build the sign at 14022 Springdale Ave., and although no residents spoke against the proposal at the time, many later complained that they had not been notified of the proposal.

After the public hearing, the council discussed whether it could change its earlier decision without inviting a lawsuit, a consequence that most on the council believed likely.

“I will not expose the city to unnecessary litigation and costs,” Councilman Craig Schweisinger said before the vote, a sentiment echoed by council members Lyn Gillespie, Joy L. Neugebauer and Frank Fry Jr.

Neugebauer said that regardless of how the council or the community feels about the sign now, “this has resolved into an issue of law (and) unless we have heard new evidence this evening, we cannot . . . change this action.”

But Mayor Charles V. Smith, the only council member to oppose the sign in every vote since it was proposed, countered that “litigation should not be the primary reason for allowing the sign to go up.” He added that every decision the council makes could be grounds for a potential lawsuit and that “anybody can sue the city for anything at any time.”

He urged the council to reconsider, citing a negative impact on businesses that he believes would outweigh litigation expenses. Smith moved to declare the permit “null and void” because construction of the sign had not begun within one year of the permit’s Feb. 12, 1991, approval, and because he said the advertising copy would be visible from the freeway. The motion failed on a 4-1 vote.

Smith said after the vote that “I lost on that one and I think the community has lost.”