Message in neon

Re “A digital billboard assault on L.A.,” Column, Oct. 5

Thank you for your article about billboard blight. Our Westside community of Rancho Park has been fighting a non-permitted supergraphic on a building at Pico and Overland for over a year. These visual blights are impossible to ignore and are often installed in the wee hours of the morning.

Clearly, with the City Council’s mixed messages about billboards -- moratoriums on new billboards (circa 2002) yet voting for billboards on our convention center (2008) -- it is fruitless to pursue a resolution to this visual plague through our local government.

The names of building owners who agree to put these monstrosities on their properties should be publicized -- perhaps then they would be more reluctant to acquiesce to a corporate tattoo on their buildings.

Ground zero in fighting billboard blight should be educating commercial property owners and encouraging them to not allow their contracts with outdoor advertisers to be renewed.

Deborah Larcom

Los Angeles