BILLBOARD WATCH-Almost all Los Angeles City Councilmembers and other city officials give lip service to the ideal of public participation in policymaking, but community activists who have spent time in City Hall know that the reality is sometimes very different.
Meetings on important issues are scheduled with a minimum of public notice, very little time is allotted to public comment, decisions seem to have been made before any discussion or vote, and lobbyists appear to be kept in the loop while members of the public are kept in the dark.
That's why it was a welcome development four years ago when the city Planning Department issued a “Public Participation Policy” with specific guidelines for involving the public in the development of citywide plans and policies. In the department's words, “Each community has its own unique voice and priorities and the Department must listen in order to plan for and protect the future of our neighborhoods. The new Public Participation Policy....will enable us to listen to these unique voices and consider these priorities.”
Unfortunately, the department appears poised to abandon these lofty sentiments in the case of the new citywide sign ordinance tentatively scheduled to be heard by the City Planning Commission on Sept. 24. According to planners, a report recommending changes to the ordinance will be issued approximately a week before that meeting, which means that the vast majority of neighborhood councils and other community-based organizations will have no time to meet, discuss the ordinance, and take a position on proposals that could result in a proliferation of both conventional and digital billboards, as well as the protection of illegal billboards from enforcement efforts.
In contrast, the Public Participation Policy calls for conducting public outreach to solicit feedback on such changes to the Planning and Zoning code, followed by the issuance of a preliminary staff recommendation report. According to the policy, a public hearing will be held on the preliminary report and public comment received and reviewed during a 60-day period prior to the issuance of a final recommendation report. There must be a minimum of two weeks between the issuance of that report and a City Planning Commission meeting on the matter.
Planners might argue that none of this is required because the sign ordinance isn't new, but was originally approved by the City Planning Commission in 2009 after three public hearings and much debate. The problem with that argument is that subsequent actions by the City Council's PLUM committee have changed it in significant ways. (For details, see “Annals of Inaction: L.A.'s New Sign Ordinance, at www.banbillboardblight.org.) And even if a case could be made that the “Public Participation Policy” isn't technically required, what's the reason to stand on a technicality to deny the public a voice in a matter of great interest to many communities?
Compounding the problem is the fact that the committee has also operated as if the community “voices” valued by the Planning Department's policy are little more than nuisances, at least where the sign ordinance has been concerned. Important meetings have been announced 72 hours in advance, the legal minimum, and because the committee regularly meets on Tuesday afternoons the notices go out on Friday afternoons, giving community members scant time to arrange to attend. Committee members have proposed major changes to the ordinance with hardly any preamble or explanation, and because these have typically come after the public comment period there has been no opportunity for public response. Actions have been taken with very little discussion, and no formal votes.
The perception, fair or not, is the committee has listened to the lobbyists for sign companies and development interests who want more digital billboards, more commercial advertising along freeways and other commercial thoroughfares and who don't want to take down any existing billboards or bring illegal ones into compliance with city codes.
At the last PLUM committee meeting on the sign ordinance, Councilmember Mitchell Englander made a point of recognizing by name all the organizations whose representatives had testified that more digital billboards would be a great thing for the city.
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This was a slap in the face to community organizations who have labored long and hard, without compensation, to try to protect their neighborhoods from the negative effects of outdoor advertising for products like fast food, alcohol, and violent movies and TV shows. It was a stark contrast to the City Planning Commission hearings back in 2009, where members clearly made a genuine attempt to listen to all sides of the issue and arrive at a balanced solution.
In other words, community activists didn't get everything they wanted, but neither did the sign companies and the various lobbyists.
The PLUM committee has now put its mark on that ordinance by proposing amnesty for all digital billboards, by proposing that the city develop a system for allowing new digital billboards anywhere on commercial streets, by proposing that more than a dozen unapproved sign districts be exempted from new regulations designed to keep the city's off-site sign ban safe from legal attack, by proposing to jettison the requirement that billboards in surrounding communities be taken down in exchange for new signs. In other words, to drive a stake right into the heart of the ordinance.
Those changes, if ultimately approved by the City Council, could have profound effects on many communities. This is not a measure dealing with some emergency. It's been seven years since it was first proposed, and it would be a travesty of the city's Planning Department didn't give neighborhood councils, community organizations and others ample time to weigh these changes and tell the City Planning Commission how they feel about them.
(Dennis Hathaway is the president of the Ban Billboard Blight coalition. He can be reached at: [email protected]. This was first posted on banbillboardblight.com Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 76
Pub: Sep 18, 2015
