ORANGE : City Settles Decade-Old Suit Over Billboards

City officials have announced the settlement of a 10-year-old lawsuit with a billboard company that had challenged the city’s sign ordinance on constitutional grounds.

National Advertising, a nationwide billboard company, can now erect four of the 11 billboards it sought to build in 1985.

The case had gone as high as the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which found that some aspects of the city’s sign code might violate First Amendment rights to free speech, and in 1988 sent the case back to U.S. District Court. The sign code at the time permitted signs only on commercial sites, restricted most billboards and barred signs from residential areas.

The court said the ban limited the ability of political, civic and public groups to place signs in the city, City Atty. Robert O. Franks said.

The impact of the case changed in recent years, when the city in 1989 amended its sign ordinance to allow some billboards on non-commercial sites.

“Commercial and non-commercial signs are now on an equal footing,” Franks said.

The settlement allows National Advertising to build four billboards near the city’s freeways. The company agreed to drop a demand for monetary damages, attorneys said.

“It’s been a long journey in the courts,” Franks said. “I think it was a good settlement because it protects the intrusion of these billboards into residential and commercial neighborhoods.” Also, Franks added, the city ended up paying no fines or fees because attorney consulting costs were covered by insurance.