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First came those yellow banners promoting ABC’s fall television season, some 2,000 of them, put up last month on city light poles in the San Fernando Valley and West Los Angeles. In a less extensive display, a so-called Messianic Jewish congregation in Woodland Hills hung banners proclaiming “Jesus is the Messiah!” to promote its High Holy Days services, provoking outrage among other Jews.

Have city light poles become just another advertising venue, no different from billboards or bus benches? They shouldn’t be.

City guidelines require that street light banners promote only community, charitable, city or nonprofit matters. The ABC banners were an “innocent mistake,” said Department of Public Works officials, while those for the Woodland Hills congregation were within the guidelines. But what about banners promoting Rupert Murdoch’s Dodgers that have hung from light posts around town?

City policy badly needs tighter monitoring. The chorus of complaints that greeted the ABC banners prompted the City Council last month to order a policy review, and the council is scheduled to take up a new draft ordinance today that would increase city fees for light post banners and more clearly define the sorts of events that can be promoted.

But the proposed ordinance would not make everyone happy. It would still allow community and nonprofit groups to hang banners to promote events. The 1st Amendment would continue to bar the council or the Public Works staff from discriminating on the basis of content, even if that content might be offensive.

Closer city monitoring of banner requests is also in order. Policy already regulates banner design, generally barring telephone numbers and requiring print easily readable from a moving car. Yet many banners don’t comply with these rules. Others, serving entirely private purposes, should not have been hung at all.

The broad use of banners had a happy beginning, when the city was demonstrating civic pride as the host of the 1984 Olympics. The city should not allow the banners to become mere substitutes for commercial billboards.

To Take Action: For e-mail, go to www.ci.la.ca.us/ then click on “Council” and a council member’s name. To phone, numbers are listed on the same Web site, or call (213) 485-2121 and ask for council member’s office.