VALLEY ROUNDUP : Valleywide : Council Says Banner Proposal Won’t Fly

Unable to reach a consensus on how to regulate street banners that hang from city poles, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday voted to send a proposed ordinance back for more work.

The flap surfaced in August when the council debated whether the ABC television network should be allowed to fly banners from city street poles when policy prohibited commercial use. The council asked for a report on ways to tighten guidelines, and imposed a monthlong moratorium on banner requests.

But on Tuesday, council members fretted again on how best to monitor banner approval and content, including that of nonprofit organizations sponsored by corporations.

Several of those groups, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, said they worried the new policy would hurt their promotion campaigns. LACMA, for example, recently partnered with Washington Mutual on a Van Gogh show, a museum official explained.

Under the proposed ordinance, banners that include such sponsorship would cost $50 each, instead of $10 for those without a sponsor name or logo.

The proposed ordinance does not require banner fees for events organized or administered by the city, including business improvement districts.

Ron Deaton, the city’s chief legislative analyst, who was responsible for drafting the proposed ordinance, cautioned lawmakers about waiving banner fees for nonprofit groups. In 1997-98, the city granted fee waivers worth $970,000. This year, the city is on track to approve $1.9 million in banner fee waivers, because the applicants are nonprofits.