Openness urged for billboard data

A clearly frustrated Los Angeles City Council instructed the office of City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo this week to try to keep information about the location of billboards available to the public.

The request, made Wednesday, comes as part of a legal settlement between the city and two billboard firms that sued over a billboard inspection program the council approved in 2002. The settlement with Clear Channel Outdoor Inc. and CBS Outdoor Inc. is scheduled to be reviewed today by a Superior Court judge and revisits the question of what information the government can keep from the public.

The inspection program included creation of a database listing key information about each billboard in the city -- the fact that none existed has long been a sore point among many residents.

In court filings, however, the city attorney agreed with billboard firms that the public should not be able to perform a computerized search by the name of the company in order to get a full list of all the billboards owned by one firm.

That prompted Councilman Jack Weiss to wonder aloud: “How can we say with a straight face to the public that the billboards in this city should be treated as a secret?”

Delgadillo’s office also agreed to notify billboard firms when a member of the public requests “a substantial portion” of information about signs owned by Clear Channel or CBS, the city’s two largest billboard firms.

In another filing, Delgadillo’s office wrote that it would not take a stance on whether such information is proprietary or public and would let the courts decide.

An increasingly agitated Councilwoman Wendy Greuel repeatedly asked three assistant city attorneys why they would agree to keep any information from the public.

Her question was never directly answered.

“We’ve agreed to let the court decide the issue and as part of the agreement we’ve not taken a position,” Deputy City Atty. Peter Gutierrez said.

Jonathan Diamond, a city attorney’s office spokesman, said in an interview that the law is not clear on whether a full list of a particular billboard company’s sign locations would be information that is public or proprietary. Allowing a judge to decide, he said, could help prevent the city from being sued again if it were to release proprietary information.

Delgadillo has been criticized in the past for not taking a harder line against billboard firms in the lawsuit. He benefited from $424,000 in billboard space donated during his 2001 campaign.

Diamond said the city attorney’s stance had nothing to do with the donations.

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steve.hymon@latimes.com