SIGN BAN SHOWDOWN LOOMS L.A. CITY COUNCIL MAY END 50-YEAR PROHIBITION ON FREEWAY BILLBOARDS.

Byline: Harrison Sheppard Staff Writer

On Election Day, Los Angeles' lame-duck City Council plans to tackle one of the most controversial and heavily lobbied issues facing it: ending a 50-year ban on freeway billboards.

The issue - a curious one in a city that hardly boasts the tidy, pristine ambience of newer communities like Thousand Oaks - has come to play a key role in the mayor and city attorney's races and provoked passions among neighborhood groups and community activists that want to see Los Angeles cleansed of nearly all billboards.

``I think it's time the City Council took control of the billboard glut,'' said Van Nuys Homeowners Association President Don Schultz.

``Drive up and down Van Nuys Boulevard, drive up and down Ventura Boulevard, there are billboards all over the place,'' he said. ``As soon as you're leaving the city of L.A. and getting outside of the county area, all of a sudden there's few billboards.''

City officials' failure over many years to enforce its existing ordinance essentially limiting the number of billboards has created a situation in which nobody really knows how much outdoor advertising there is or how much of it is legally there.

And that has led to several options being put before the council, most of whose members will be leaving after Election Day or in a few months when replacements are chosen for Council President John Ferraro who died and Councilman Joel Wachs, who is moving to New York.

Outdoor advertising companies are pushing a measure that would require them to remove large numbers of billboards elsewhere in the city for every one they put up along the freeways - a much more lucrative and effective form of advertising.

``You get 50, 60 billboards up in industrial areas for 2,000 down,'' said Ken Spiker Jr., lead consultant to the outdoor advertising industry.

``No city in the country's ever had a deal like this. We're going to take this to Long Beach, to San Francisco, to San Diego. They all want it.''

Spiker claims to have nine votes to get the trade-off measure passed but it would open up the freeways in Los Angeles to billboards - a previously sacrosanct preserve free of such signs for safety reasons because of the distraction to motorists traveling at high speeds.

Only Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, Councilwoman Rita Walters and Councilman Mike Feuer, a candidate for city attorney in Tuesday's runoff, are openly opposed among the 13 members on the council. The council is down two officeholders because of Ferraro's death and former Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg's election to the state Assembly.

Outdoor advertising firms put up at least $424,250 worth of billboards to support city attorney candidate Rocky Delgadillo, and $260,000 worth of signs for mayoral candidate James Hahn. Those firms and their employees made direct financial contributions to Delgadillo of at least $1,500 and to Hahn of $6,500.

While the city attorney does not vote on ordinances, a spokesman for Delgadillo campaign rival Feuer noted the attorney still has a role in deciding how aggressive to be in enforcing city ordinances.

``You have a limited amount of time and resources to go after whatever you're going to go after,'' said Feuer campaign spokesman Vincent Duffy. ``Clearly Mike would make limiting billboard blight a priority.''

By contrast, Duffy said that Delgadillo will likely not be ``as aggressive an advocate.''

Duffy added that the free signs made a significant difference in the race, especially because it has a lower profile, and therefore less free media, than the mayor's race.

But Delgadillo said he will not be beholden to the billboard companies and noted that as an independent expenditure, the free advertising was not requested by him and therefore will not influence him once in office.

``There's no way for me to accept or deny them,'' Delgadillo said Thursday on the KCRW-FM (89.8) radio show ``Which Way L.A.''

``If I did call the billboard companies and tell them to take them down, it would imply I'm influenced by them. The fact is that leaders in the city of Los Angeles have to have the strength of character to stand up and say no to special interests. I've done it and I will continue to do it as city attorney of the city of Los Angeles.''

Opponents, including numerous homeowners groups and community activists, say the city should not allow any new billboards on the freeway because they are distracting to drivers and cause visual blight.

They also argue the city should pursue stronger efforts to enforce an estimated 4,000 billboards that don't conform to city law.

A stricter proposal from Miscikowski, supported by Feuer, would simply ban all new billboards without allowing new ones on the freeways.

Delgadillo spokeswoman Scott said Delgadillo does not yet have a position on the freeway ordinance because he wants to review questions relating to impacts on traffic safety. But Scott said that in general Delgadillo supports the concept of taking billboards out of residential areas and putting them into industrial ones.

Feuer has developed a reputation as one of the strongest billboard opponents on the City Council, including sponsoring a successful motion that banned alcohol and tobacco advertising on billboards several years ago.

While the city's campaign finance laws restrict how much companies and individuals can give directly to candidates, court decisions throughout the country have found that based on free speech grounds the government cannot restrict independent expenditures - or campaign support that is provided without request or coordination from the campaign itself.

Delgadillo raised about $2 million in the primary and general election, meaning the independent expenditures from billboard companies were equal to more than a fifth of the funds he raised.

Since 1998, outdoor advertising firms have contributed nearly $50,000 to candidates in the current election and to current city office holders, according to a review of city Ethics Commission documents.

Residents and homeowners groups across the San Fernando Valley have long raised concerns over the billboard issue, said Schultz, the homeowners association president.

But he opposes the proposal going before the council Tuesday - concerned about how the city would enforce it - and is more interested in stricter standards.

``What's on the table now I think is terrible,'' he said.