More than two years have passed since the Los Angeles City Council and its planning commission set out to revise its sign ordinance. Ostensibly, the revisions were to combat a proliferation of illegal billboards, and to control what some in the city believed to be too many supergraphic wraps on buildings.

 

And, by the way, up to a 70 percent reduction in allowable on-premise sign area.

 

This last proposed restriction galvanized sign companies in California and beyond. Under the able direction of the California Sign Association (CSA), a lobbying and education effort began, which was detailed in this column in 2009. What particularly continues as an achievement were the before and after renderings of a Los Angeles street, before with scores of illegal signs, and after with legally permitted—and quality manufactured—on-premise graphics, complete in some instances with EMCs.

 

PURUSE ILLEGAL SIGNS

In the meantime, L.A. elected a new city attorney, with a mandate to pursue illegal sign owners. Those who follow the news closely will remember one supergraphic owner sent to jail for installing a building wrap without a permit.

 

Two years later, something remarkable has happened in Los Angeles. The city has abandoned—at least for now—its efforts to revise the sign code regarding on-premise business signs, even while continuing to target illegal billboards and supergraphics. 

 

In November, the CSA was widely applauded for its work by the Central City Association (CCA) in L.A., a group that represents business interests in and around downtown Los Angeles. The CCA called the lobbying results “a win for business” that would not have happened without the state sign association. 

 

SCAP – A ‘WIN FOR BUSINESS’

The coalition that included CSA and CCA worked to begin implementing what they called the SCAP, or Sign Code Administration Program. According to a CCA newsletter, SCAP would include a “nominal fee” paid by on-premise sign owners to:

 

“(1) enforce current rules, rather than enacting more stringent on-site sign regulations;

 

“(2) streamline the permitting process for on-site signs, as well as create a dedicated sign processing desk at the city; and

 

“(3) establish an education and amnesty program that would allow businesses with unpermitted signs to apply for their permits penalty-free for a period of time.”

 

Those fines, by the way, could be costly. Proposed levels apparently begin at $6,000 for a first-time violation of a typical on-premise installation, and then quickly escalate for repeat offenders. Only hard-core illegal sign owners would not want to get with the new SCAP initiative.

 

That’s the good news from Los Angeles, an effort rewarded with a program to enforce the code already on the books, and financed by fines against illegal signs. The other news from the L.A. City Council is more ominous, however. 

 

The current proposed ordinance gives L.A. citizens the right to sue owners of signs that are purportedly illegal. The final enactment of this provision will be closely watched, and needs to be. Legislation can grant a private citizen a legal course of action. Indeed, common law long has had an option to sue against a nuisance. 

 

SIGN VIGILANTE SQUADS NEXT?

What is at stake here will be the distinction between an L.A. resident challenging only an illegal sign, a “citizen’s arrest” so to speak, and the right to pursue a sign that any citizen or community group considers objectionable. If the former goes into effect, that is a workable solution, albeit not to my preference.

 

However, if the latter goes into effect, private property rights in Los Angeles could get upturned, along with constitutional protection of the commercial speech portion of a sign. From citizen’s arrests might lead to sign vigilante squads. Not an attractive solution for Los Angeles or any other jurisdiction. I hope the city council there sticks with what is likely to work—the SCAP—and minimizes private citizen challenges to on-premise signs. In the meantime, kudos to the CSA for showing what an engaged, focused and energized sign association can do when everything is at stake.

 

DO BILLBOARDS DISTRACT?

This just in—and breaking news: Jerry Wachtel dislikes the billboard industry, and dislikes digital billboards even more. OK, that is not new. But does repetition of a viewpoint make that viewpoint more sound, more reasonable, or more compelling? 

 

The March issue of Planning magazine, published by the American Planning Association, contained an article authored by Wachtel, with the contents page promoting the story as “Jerry Wachtel explains how big electric signs are distracting drivers in new ways.”

 

Wachtel laments that so much attention (from federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Transportation) is focused on “distraction inside the vehicle, particularly caused by cell phones and text messaging.” There is a reason for this focus, of course: it’s real.

 

He notes, “We know that the (digital billboard) technology isn’t going away, but study after study provides evidence of distraction.” That’s a mighty leap from the usual language of “might” or “could suggest the possibility of,” etc. 

 

But here is what is intriguing about the article—not what was in it, Wachtel as the author and the APA as the publisher is entitled to examine a viewpoint. Yet there was no mention of the real news in digital signs and driver distraction—that there is no valid research that has been released to actually prove his hypothesis.

 

Just two months before this Planning magazine article was published, long-awaited federally-funded research into “commercial electronic variable message signs” using real-time eye-tracking methodology failed to be presented, as expected, at the annual Transportation Research Board meeting in Washington D.C. The reason? The results were “under internal review” and would be released “hopefully, in upcoming months.” Wachtel, by the way, moderated the TRB session where this federal research was to have been presented. It’s more than two months later, and no research has been released. APA owes its readers, and professional planners across the country, an update.

 

As the maxim goes: I respect your right to have your own opinion, but not the right to have your own facts.