Still Too Many Billboards

To have heard Hal Bernson last winter was to believe that the city councilman and chair of the Planning and Land Use Management Committee was, like most local residents, fed up to here with humongous billboards sprouting up across the city. Bernson thundered and railed at the billboard executives present at a series of committee hearings. There would be a moratorium on new signs, he insisted. The city was going to crack down on the many unpermitted and abandoned billboards. And a tough new ordinance under discussion would require the billboard companies to remove thousands of existing signs in exchange for permission to erect new ones along certain freeways. To heck with the needs of the industry.

What a performance. Before council today are three proposals that emerged from those committee hearings, the weakest of which the advertisers are happy to accept. That should be a clear sign that they are surely not the best deal for the public.

Gone is the tough talk. In fact, at last week’s committee meeting, Bernson was negotiating with the billboard representatives across the table, politely asking what they would “live with.”

Each proposal requires that billboard companies take down a certain number of signs before they can put up between 45 and 70 gigantic two-sided boards at lucrative sites along local freeways that had previously been off-limits to advertising. In exchange, the companies must demolish a minimum of 2,900 signs and possibly many more. Because the companies themselves will have a lot to say about which signs come down, however, the concern is that they’ll remove the small, unprofitable signs and leave up the large billboards looming over neighborhoods.

Moreover, these proposals do nothing to address the huge problem of illegal billboards. No one, not even the Department of Building and Safety, which enforces city sign ordinances, knows how many illegally constructed signs there are or even where they are--but everyone agrees the number is large and growing. Under these proposals, companies that demolish small, legal billboards and leave up illegal signs could still theoretically qualify for the pricey freeway locations. That’s no answer to blight.

The council, six of whose members will be replaced come July, is in a great rush to close this deal. A far better approach would be to hold off on any new billboards until the city gets a handle on the problem of illegal signs. Then the council should come up with a formula that removes enough billboards--and enough large ones--to make a difference residents can see.