AGOURA HILLS : Merchants Reject Sign Compromise

A group of Agoura Hills merchants Monday rejected a city offer that would allow them to keep their pole-mounted business signs, saying the proposal would cost too much.

City officials had said the businesses could keep their signs along the Ventura Freeway--despite a 1985 ordinance calling for their removal--for seven more years if they clustered them and paid the city $500,000 to make other public improvements.

The city’s offer grew out of several proposals made by shopkeepers attempting to keep the signs, which they say are necessary to attract business. City officials say the signs are ugly and want them taken down.

In April, the merchants offered to give $500,000 to the city to pay for putting power lines underground along the freeway in exchange for keeping their signs. They maintained that clustering the signs would cost more money, so they lowered the offer to $200,000 if they were forced to do so.

Both proposals were rejected by the City Council.

“The businesses have attempted in good faith to put forward several proposals,” said Larry Golub, an attorney representing the merchants. “The city is picking and choosing out of those proposals, and that emasculates the proposals and does not exhibit the good faith the businesses have.”

Golub and city officials said they want negotiations to continue. Golub said the merchants are prepared to go to court.