AGOURA HILLS : Council to Delay Acting on Sign Law

The Agoura Hills City Council will not decide how to enforce an ordinance requiring the removal of advertising signs atop tall polls until after two new members are sworn in next month.

“I spent so many sleepless nights over this issue during the past few years, I would have liked to have been part of the outcome,” said Mayor Ed Kurtz, who did not run for reelection Nov. 2. “But I think it’s appropriate, considering the time frame, for the new council members to think it over.”

By a 3-1 margin, voters rejected two measures on the Nov. 2 ballot that would have allowed illuminated signs for fast food, gas and other items to remain perched on poles, some of which are more than 100 feet tall.

That vote left in place a 1985 law requiring the removal of the signs, which many residents have characterized as a gaudy affront to their picturesque town.

Merchants had been ordered to take the signs down by March, 1992, at their own expense, but the deadline was extended while a group of business owners asked the council for a compromise.

Now that two compromise measures have been defeated by voters, said City Atty. Greg Stepanicich, the council must consider requests for exemptions from the law filed by merchants before the 1992 deadline.

Hearings on those requests already have been held, and the “inclination of the council at the time was to deny” them, Stepanicich said.

Although a group of merchants had originally threatened a lawsuit against the city to block the law, the next move is up to the City Council, said Jess Ruf, owner of Lumber City, which has a pole-mounted sign in Agoura Hills.

“The ball is in their court,” Ruf said. “Hopefully, with a 40% new City Council, they’ll want to sit down and talk things over with us.”

Councilman-elect Ed Corridori, who opposed both ballot measures, said he wants to review the requests for exemptions before voting on them or setting a new deadline for the signs to come down.

“My gut feeling, though, is that the voters have said pretty clearly that they don’t want these big signs in their city,” Corridori said. “And it’s been eight years since the ordinance was drafted, so I think that will factor into determining when a reasonable time is to remove (the signs).”