Bus Bench Ad Proposal Runs Into a Detour : Revenue: Plan would have firm replace dilapidated seats with graffiti-resistant models and pay the city for right to advertise on them. But some community groups see it as an affront to beautification efforts.

The plan seemed simple enough: A private company would replace at least 6,000 dilapidated and vandalized bus benches throughout the city with new graffiti-resistant models.

The firm would sell advertising on the benches and in exchange pay the city at least $245,000 a year in fees--an increase from the $80,000 that is collected annually from a program that permits advertising on a bench-by-bench basis.

“It was going to be the best of all worlds,” said Public Works Commissioner Sharon Morris, a member of the city panel that debated the project for months. “It sounded too good to be true.”

It was.

The project hit a snag recently when city officials learned that local development plans for at least 15 communities throughout the city either prohibit putting new ads on benches or require prior approval by citizen advisory panels.

And many of those citizen panels are viewing the plan as an affront to neighborhood beautification efforts.

One example is the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan, a development blueprint for a 17-mile stretch of what is considered the San Fernando Valley’s Main Street. The plan prohibits new off-site advertising, or signs that are not directly attached to the businesses they are promoting.

Furthermore, the citizens advisory panel for that plan wants custom-designed benches to give Ventura Boulevard “its own character,” said Jeff Brain, chairman of the panel.

Other community plans that either prohibit off-site advertising or require community approval exist in Westwood Village, Granada Hills, Reseda, the Wilshire district and Porter Ranch, among others.

The conflict came to light about six months ago when Pacific Palisades residents began to raise money to buy decorative stone benches and learned about the city’s bus bench project. The residents researched the Pacific Palisades community development plan and found that it prohibited bus bench advertising.

When city officials looked into the matter, they discovered that it was not the only specific plan with such a ban.

City officials also learned that the unit that oversees bus bench and bus shelter advertising has not been aware of the restrictions in the community plans and has in the past issued permits to allow businesses to advertise on a bench-by-bench basis.

The discovery has opened a Pandora’s box for city officials. Residents who want to be excluded from the bench advertising program are also wondering how a resolution of the problem will affect their neighborhoods.

“It’s a seemingly innocuous situation, but it has some ramifications citywide,” said Chuck McGlothlin, president of Palisades Pride, the nonprofit citizens group that has raised money for the benches in that community’s business district.

Councilman Marvin Braude, who represents Pacific Palisades, has argued that the program should go ahead without the participation of that community. “We can’t give up the fight to make our community attractive,” he said.

But Arlan Renfro, president of Norman Bench Advertising, the firm that has won exclusive rights to negotiate a 10-year contract for the program, said it would be financially unprofitable to exclude certain areas from the program or to require specially designed benches for each community.

“It’s going to be very difficult for everybody to get what they want,” he said.

Renfro said the proposed contract calls on his firm to buy and install at least 6,000 new benches made mostly out of recycled plastic. To make a profit, he said, his firm must have the freedom to advertise in all areas, particularly in affluent areas such as Pacific Palisades and those around Ventura Boulevard.

The firm expects to generate an average of $30 in revenue per bench per month, he said. Because the demand for advertising only fills about half the benches, Renfro said the project would generate about $1 million per year, before the firm pays for maintenance costs and fees to the city. Norman expects to spend about $2 million to buy and install the 6,000 benches, according to a city report.

Norman Bench Advertising became the only major bench advertising firm in the city several years ago when it acquired Coast United Advertising Co., the city’s other large bench advertising firm.

Another benefit of the proposed project is that it would impose new, tougher penalties if Norman Bench Advertising fails to maintain the bus benches, proponents said. The existing bus bench advertising program does not have a way to hold advertisers responsible for neglected benches.

Caught between neighborhood opposition to the plan and the need to increase revenues for a financially troubled city, the Board of Public Works referred the matter to the City Council in June without resolving the dilemma.

Public works officials said the council has several options: It can kill the project and keep the existing program; it can draft an ordinance that overrides the advertising restrictions in the individual community plans, or it can exclude those communities from the project and renegotiate a contract with Norman Bench Advertising that generates less profit for the city.

But Morris still holds out hope for salvaging the program.

“We want to move forward because there are communities that have residents using buses but they don’t have enough benches,” she said.