Court rulings, settlements and weak enforcement render new-billboard ban ineffective

At the center of the problem: Rocky Delgadillo, City Attorney/ Incompetent Fool Beholden to the Billboard Companies.

They, especially ClearChannel/CBS Outdoors, gave him a half million bucks in free ads for his run for City Attorney -- against anti-illegal billboard activist Mike Feuer.

Rocky has intentionally undermined every effort by the city to reign in its illegal billboards -- they have thousands they're not paying for, and refuse to divulge the location of, as they must in every other major city.

The L A Weeky sued to try to get them to live upto this legal obligation, but Rocky's ofifice has helped them continue to shirk their legal obligations, giving them advise that theiy don't have to comply with the law, since it's "proprietary." These companies gave Rocky a lavish Beverly Hills "thank you" party a few months ago, a slap in the face to law enforcement.

Sadly, the illegal billboard placements are encouraged by Jan Perry and Ed Reyes, and even Herb Wesson in some cases, since they're fooled by the companies' claims that they're contributing some money to parks in the inner city in exchange for putting up 7-story lighted billboards that are illegal under City Ordiannce.
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The billboard companies are only able to get away with this, because Perry, Reyes and some others are -- no other way to put it -- just plain too stupid to comprehend the facts.

Now, a judge has ruled that because "the city" (read, Perry/ Reyes/ Wesson) have allowed illegal billboards, OTHER areas that have successfully fought them for years, must allow them - and also, from other billboard companies which demand "equal rights to put up illegal billboards."

This is what happens when democracy becomes the lowest common denominator: the most uneducated voters in the country, electing the most uneducated and downright stupid Councilmembers, City Attorney and other officials, because of ethnic gerrymandering and affirmative action in the form of liberal-left bias for "color" above qualifications.

Sad, sad. They're aggressively trying to turn us into a Third World looking city even faster than we already are for different social and demographic reasons,

Los Angeles shot themselves in the foot when they let the deep pockets companies like Clear Channel and Infinity (CBS Viacom) put up whatever they wanted wherever they wanted. Political corruption has pretty much taken over and until the elected officials quit taking money from the people they are responsible for regulating it will never get better. As for signs painted onto buildings those go back to the first farmer who got his barn painted for free because the painting was an ad for chewing tobacco or animal feed.

Personally I think that they should have a uniform paint code so that a relatively few colors could be carried by the graffiti removal squads which would more closely match the buildings they paint over. By the way why can't they at least carry the correct colors for fire hydrants and traffic signals?

Ban billboards! Tear down every single last one of them.

You say the courts will say that would be a voilation of free speech.

When does a for-profit's right to speech bump heads with my right to be free of eye-blight?

Drive through West Lake Village; your eyes will not be assaulted by a jumble of billboards. If only L.A. could be as beautiful and clean as it is out there!

Bravo! Skeptical Taxpayer.

You are the best investigative journalist on the Daily News site.

Your facts are well-gathered and your writing is organized, concise and to the point.

Maybe someday we will know who you are in 'real life.'

Keep writing and telling it the way it is!

Katie J wrote:

Ban billboards! Tear down every single last one of them.
You say the courts will say that would be a voilation of free speech.
When does a for-profit's right to speech bump heads with my right to be free of eye-blight?
Drive through West Lake Village; your eyes will not be assaulted by a jumble of billboards. If only L.A. could be as beautiful and clean as it is out there!

What about gangbangers, drug dealers, illegals taking jobs from US citizens and turning Los Angeles (and the rest of the USA) into their personal chamber pot? Or don't all of you artsy-fartsy "aesthetic" types consider THAT to be "eye-blight"?

Nice job of getting your priorities straight.

I escaped from California wrote:

<quoted text>
What about gangbangers, drug dealers, illegals taking jobs from US citizens and turning Los Angeles (and the rest of the USA) into their personal chamber pot? Or don't all of you artsy-fartsy "aesthetic" types consider THAT to be "eye-blight"?
Nice job of getting your priorities straight.

Know what you are talking about before you open your big yap.

I've written reams on every topic you mentioned, and reamed out all those who support their illegal alien constituency; those who won't support Jamiel's law; those who will not listen to any argument for repealing Special Order 40; how graffiti and crime have increased under Bratton; how the gangs control the streets and council members and the mayor; how L.A. has become a third world city; how the city council members ignore a court order mandating them to listen to constituents during 'open comments' and not rudely hold private convesation and talk on their cell phones; and on and on about all the ills that afflict the city and our corrupt officials.

This was one comment about one particular problem. It wasn't necessary to mention every single thing that is wrong with L.A.

Katie J wrote:

<quoted text>
Know what you are talking about before you open your big yap.
I've written reams on every topic you mentioned, and reamed out all those who support their illegal alien constituency; those who won't support Jamiel's law; those who will not listen to any argument for repealing Special Order 40; how graffiti and crime have increased under Bratton; how the gangs control the streets and council members and the mayor; how L.A. has become a third world city; how the city council members ignore a court order mandating them to listen to constituents during 'open comments' and not rudely hold private convesation and talk on their cell phones; and on and on about all the ills that afflict the city and our corrupt officials.
This was one comment about one particular problem. It wasn't necessary to mention every single thing that is wrong with L.A.

I agree with all you've said here... I just want to live my life in a clean and safe city. I can deal with it myself but I'm worried for the rest of you. Register your disgust at the polls in November. I, personally, haven't voted for a long time (for various reasons) but I'm going to register this year and maybe, just maybe, if enough of us are tired of the same old broken promises and incompetence get up off our asses and say something about it some changes for the better can be enacted. Remember, the fish rots from the head down. This too can be laid at the feet of our city government headed by Mayor Wanderlust.

Katie, thanks, and like you many of the commenters can see what the basic problems are in this city and share their frustrations on a variety of issues. One thing I'd disagree with you on is that Council should always listen more attentively to public comment -- have you ever actually seen what that is, in reality (except when community members show up for specific issues of importance to them)?

I won't name them, not wanting to inflate their egos further but there are a handful -- a few men, two in particular who hail from Venice Beach, and are suing our city because they had issues with ordinances being enforced for street peddlers, and a few women who show up every single day. They always say the same things, berate the officials, often very, very rudely and even with foul words, and I wouldn't let any of them into my home or place of business. They make our city look like the social cesspool out of towners say it is, never contribute to the dialogue and most importantly, for me as a taxpayer, take up hours of time every week in the collective time of all those people and their staffs having to listen to them instead of doing useful business. A couple of them openly use OUR taxpayer dollars to promote their blogs, lawsuits, and other appearances.

At times, when dozen of people are there for one issue, one of the CM's has "stacked" the chambers with them to make his/ her point -- most recently, Janice Hahn brought in many people, twice, to support the property tax for gangs that she and Cardenas want to hit us with. That doesn't mean they should be tuned out -- but one can listen to a number of people saying the same thing, or the same person saying the same thing day after day, while still doing the work they were elected to do.(I try to distinguish between the members, who have a LOT of differences underneath the relative harmony we see in Council -- that's highlighted here, in this billboard case, where some members work against those listed, like Garcetti/Greuel/Weiss, who are fighting to keep their districts free of unwanted billboards.)

As a taxpayer who pays for their time, and needs their services for my community as we ALL do (I got involved observing politics on a grassroots level opposing a huge development in a neighboring town -- whose borders happen to be one street over from me so they don't care about us, and we've had to enlist support of our CM's), I WANT the Councilmembers to multitask, return calls and view emails from constituents who have urgent problems, rather than being forced to be glued day after dya to those just shy of the loony bin. Also, the Council is NOT required to be so open to these time-wasters, and shouldn't be -- they're only required to hold 15 meetings in 2 years, and can and should cut down speakers to that amount of public comment time as the Board of Supervisors do, as other Boards and Commissions can. Even NC's, which meet just monthly, have 2-min. limits in general, and 99% of speakers NEED that time to address issues, unlike the "public commenters" who have turned City Hall into Venice Beach/ Downtown.

Skeptical, I know exactly who you're talking about, and I agree that they probably waste the council's time most of the time.

I've seen those meetings on Ch. 35 and the council also wastes a ton of it's own time.

The day Jamiel Shaw's father stood before the council to literally beg them to consider Jamiel's law, their collective behavior twards Jamiel Shaw, Sr. and the few people that came with him was reprehensible. No stacked deck there.

That same day two of the CMs handed out their boloney citations and droned on and on ad borem. I thought they'd never be done introducing people, hearing the sound of their own voices and if I remember the people receiving the commendations didn't do anything spectacular to merit them. It wasn't like they went above and beyond like pulling someone out a burning building.

I received two of those commendations, and because I refuse to drive downtown under any circumstances, I know now, after all these years, that I saved the council a lot of time. They were presented to me here in the Valley, quickly with no muss or fuss and at everyone's convenience.

Frankly, I think they should forego them altogether. They cost us taxpayers a lot of money, and a thank you letter would do the job quite nicely.

You raised some interesting points, so maybe the bottom line on this is that the council should be more discriminating on how they spent their time; that certainly holds true for how they spend our money.

Dave- Chatsworth wrote:

<quoted text>
I agree with all you've said here... I just want to live my life in a clean and safe city. I can deal with it myself but I'm worried for the rest of you. Register your disgust at the polls in November. I, personally, haven't voted for a long time (for various reasons) but I'm going to register this year and maybe, just maybe, if enough of us are tired of the same old broken promises and incompetence get up off our asses and say something about it some changes for the better can be enacted. Remember, the fish rots from the head down. This too can be laid at the feet of our city government headed by Mayor Wanderlust.

I'm glad to hear you are going to register to vote. You sound like the kind of voter that there are too few of here and across the country.

A person who will look beyond the hype and campaign ads, read up on the issues and candidates, and base his vote on the best information he can get.

If you have a chance, visit waltermooreformayor.com and ronkayela.com . Two excellent places to get info in addition to what's in the newspapers and the zero info we get from the TV news.

Katie J, I saw a replay of the day the Shaws went into Council to plead their case, and that two of the Councilmembers tried to head them off before they even spoke by denouncing them of creating racial division and being influenced by right-wing "talk show radio hosts." One of whom, Kevin James, happened to be in the Council Chambers. This disrespectful person was Richard Alarcon, who should be held in a special Hall of Shame for that and a number of other reasons.

But that wasn't a case of multi-tasking or being distracted -- it's clear political opposition to admitting that illegal Hispanic gangmembers are any more of a problem than anyone else. We know what's behind that political agenda, of growing numbers of their own potential supporters no matter how.

To me, it's simply a matter of common sense to enforce the laws, and when people like Gavin Newsom and the entire political structure of San Francisco have spent the last 20 years openly defying ICE when it comes to punishing or turning over to them illegal gangbangers arrested for felonies, it boggles the mind. However, I don't support Walter Moore for a number of reasons, all to do with his politically amateurish behavior. Also, I actually see signs that Antonio is distancing himself from the Alarcon/Reyes radical faction, under pressure from his big-money backers, and let's face it, ultra-liberals like Newsom and Jimmy and now Janice Hahn are perhaps even worse in their efforts to pander to the Latino community. By the way, the Shaws say that Parks walked out of the room the day they were they and refused to meet with them, too.

As for the billboard issue, it's definitely a clash of cultures: those who don't see anything wrong with the giant, lighted monstrosities and all the illegal ones, and don't understand that by getting the majority of Council to let them defy the Billboard Ordinance that OTHER council members fought to establish earlier, they're giving the illegal scofflaws an excuse to put more into nice neighborhoods that people have worked hard to maintain as "First World."

Ironically, the Billboard District for Jan Perry's district was brought up in the SAME Council session that the Shaws attended, both referenced above. Sadly, some speakers there on behalf of the Shaws joined Perry and Reyes to denounce the anti-billboard speakers as being shallow, uncaring people who were trying to take parks from the poor and worrying about aesthetics, at a time when kids "like Jamiel" were getting killed because they didn't have enough parks. This is the kind of total ignorance and blind class warfare that I spoke of in first comment, that came from Jan Perry and Reyes -- and which wrongly creeps into other issues like this one about Jamiel's Law.

Billboards are blight along with graffiti and those signs plastered on every light pole etc. across the city. We in Burbank are fortunate that we have a sign ordinance and people have to get permission to put up lost dog signs. That's one of the advantages of being in a smaller city even one that has its own issues and problems. LA could never do the enforcement because its so big but they do need to do something not only about billboards, signs, but gangs, crime etc. Gavin Newsom won't implement Laura's Law and have hemmed and hawed about it for years. Read about Laura's Law because it reduces homelessness but it is expensive to implement. Things could be better if folks just did what they should do and have the courage to do it.

BILLBOARDS NOT GONE WILD
Excellant story. You just need to tie the facts together. Any reporter can read the 2002 Billboard Settlement Agreement and can see it is totally unconstitutional. The Federal Court agreed and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal will deny the appeal very soon. THEN WHY is still allowing Clear Channel to build Digitals and why isn't the City taking down Illegal billboards - no settlement - no deal. Don't blame the Mayor, City Council, or City Attorney. It was only one person, Jack Weiss who ran for office on the promise to ban and remove billboards. He pushed and wrote the ordinances, knowing, as a former US Attorney, that they were unconstitutional. You must regulate all signs or no signs. You cannot single out one type of sign and not all.

Mort Allen has a version of "the facts" not supported by any report on this issue, most certainly not by the excellent multi-part series on ClearChannel/CBS Outdoors by the L A Weekly's Jill Stewart and Christine Pelisek, who found the company utterly unwilling to abide by the law or its own previous agreements, and so the Weekly had to sue them to get what should have been public information.

Allen has some sort of personal axe to grind or just plain forgets facts at his age, but it was Mike Feuer who ran against Rocky Delgadillo for City Attorney, who he is confusing with a "one issue" candidate, not Weiss. Feuer ran as an anti-billboard, pro-community activist, so ClearChannel/CBS Outdoors spent $500,000 in free ads for Rocky Delgadillo's campaign.(Rocky was fined for this by the Ethics Commission, but clearly felt it was worth it.) It's Rocky who negotiated the current deal with ClearChannel/CBS, going against the intent of the Council's directive to him, which other companies allege gives them unfair advantage in keeping up illegal and LED signs.

Just a couple of months ago, ClearChannel/CBS threw a lavish party for Rocky Delgadillo at a Beverly Hills hotel, just to thank him for "being a nice guy." David Zahnizer of the Times wrote about this, among others, and many considered it unseemly and brazenly open about who's been doing them favors at City Hall. It's Mort Allen who's GONE WILD.