Billboard Deal Should Die

A couple of weeks ago, the Los Angeles City Council seemed poised to hand the billboard industry a sweet deal. The outdoor advertisers would get the right to erect behemoth, double-sided signs along local freeways in spots that had been off-limits for years. In exchange, the advertisers would take down a certain number of signs--the exact number has varied--now cluttering neighborhood streets.

The ordinance looked like a sure thing because council members would get a twofer: They could look tough on billboard clutter, an issue that really irks residents; at the same time, they could keep billboard industry campaign contributors happy. Billboard lobbyists essentially wrote the measure, which would reward the industry for taking down smaller, less profitable signs in exchange for the right to put up new ones that would generate big bucks.

Yet, this sure thing is now quite iffy because residents have caught wind of the real nature of the deal. Faced with the prospect of the council chamber filled with furious homeowner groups, votes on the measure have now been postponed three times.

This is good news and should prompt the council to rethink its approach. Rather than allowing more billboards, the council should first extend its current moratorium on new signs. Then it should insist that the Department of Building and Safety get a handle on the number of illegally erected billboards in the city. No one knows how many of these bootlegged boards have sprouted, but the suspicion is that there are hundreds, if not thousands.

The current council, with six lame-duck members, would do residents a great service by granting the city Building and Safety Department the funds to find illegal signs and go after their owners. Then, after new council members took their seats in July, we could begin to talk about whether the city should permit yet more of these humongous billboards.