L.A. to Fight 11th-Hour Billboard Installation

Angering Los Angeles city and county officials, a major billboard company began putting up more than a dozen signs along Los Angeles area freeways just hours before new restrictions took effect New Year’s Day.

Before 2002 rang in, STI/Outdoor LLC began constructing new billboards along some of the county’s most heavily traveled freeways, many of them in the central Los Angeles area and the San Fernando Valley.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said he would go to court today to seek a temporary restraining order to block the installation of up to 25 billboards on land owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He said he will argue that the billboards require city permits that have not been issued and that they would violate an ordinance banning them along freeways.

The city also plans to file a civil complaint--which could result in damages--alleging that the billboards are a nuisance and represent unfair business practices.

“This is an outrageous act on behalf of the billboard company,” said Delgadillo. “This company is trying to make an end run around city laws and the will of the people, and I’m not going to tolerate it.”

A representative of the billboard partnership said it believes it had a legal right to begin construction on the signs by Jan. 1.

Officials accused STI/Outdoor of violating a contract that gave the partnership permission to put up 41 billboards and 10 kiosks on MTA property in Southern California in exchange for the installation of toilets in MTA facilities and a share of billboard profits of at least $23 million.

Under the agreement, officials said, the billboard company was required to receive city approval before installing the giant signs along the freeway.

The Legislature also weighed in on the matter, passing legislation by state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) that required billboard companies to obtain the necessary local permits before building on MTA property. That law took effect Tuesday. But city officials said they believe local permits were required even before the Polanco measure applied.

A spokesman for the billboard company disagreed.

“We have a binding contract which allows these billboards to be placed in the ground on MTA right-of-way,” said Howard Sunkin, a lobbyist for the partnership.

Sunkin said the requirement that local permits be obtained was not part of the contract, but was adopted separately by the MTA board as a resolution in August 2000. He said the MTA board did not have the right to add that requirement.

But county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who serves on the MTA board, said he believes that the company has acted in bad faith.

“I think they’ve made a big mistake,” he said. “They’ve violated the provisions of the contract, and they’ve tried to beat the clock on a new state law. The MTA will argue that they are in breach of contract. I don’t think this will stand.”

Los Angeles city officials have struggled to control billboard blight, adopting a variety of restrictions over the years. With well-sited billboards each generating up to $1 million a year, according to one industry official, the stakes are high.

The City Council is about to take up a proposal that would allow as many as 70 new billboards along freeways in exchange for about 2,000 other signs being removed from other parts of the city. Currently, there is a moratorium on new billboards in the city.

Competing billboard firms that had hoped to benefit from the proposed plan were among those who raised a cry to city officials when STI/Outdoor began putting up billboards.

Even if the city fails in court, it may have other leverage against the new billboards. Viacom, the parent company of Outdoor Systems Inc., is part of a separate partnership given a city contract last month that could be worth $750 million over 20 years.

Under that deal, Viacom/Decaux LLC will install 150 pay toilets and 3,200 other pieces of street furniture in exchange for the right to put 3,200 ads on the furniture.

Delgadillo, meanwhile, appeared to relish playing the role of enforcer against the billboard industry. He came under criticism last year after two billboard companies advertised his candidacy on their signs. Outdoor Systems was not one of the firms making the independent expenditures.

“We have a billboard moratorium, and I intend to uphold that,” Delgadillo said.

Greig Smith, an aide to Councilman Hal Bernson, spent part of New Year’s Day surveying the locations and photographing the construction work as evidence. Proposed locations for the billboards in Bernson’s district include along San Fernando Road next to the Ronald Reagan Freeway and a site near the intersection of the Golden State and Foothill freeways.