The outdoor advertising company Clear Channel quietly wrote a controversial Los Angeles City Hall proposal that could help the company preserve hundreds of millions of dollars in electronic billboard business.
Two weeks ago, Councilmen Ed Reyes and Paul Krekorian called for new negotiations with digital billboard companies that could allow the cash-hungry city to capture a portion of sign revenues. In a motion approved by the council, the lawmakers also said it was "critical" for the city to act before a ruling is handed down in an ongoing billboard case.
The outcome of the case could force the elimination of 100 digital signs, four-fifths of them operated by Clear Channel.
The motion was loudly denounced by neighborhood activists, who accused Krekorian and Reyes of trying to head off a court decision detrimental to the interests of the two companies that operate the electronic billboards.
On Friday, Reyes spokeswoman Monica Valencia acknowledged that a Clear Channel lobbyist had drafted the initial motion. She defended the company's involvement, saying Reyes receives motions from private sources "all the time."
"It's not uncommon for us to collaborate with other stakeholders on a motion," Valencia said in an email. "We are most concerned with the context of the motion, not the person who wrote it, and its sensitivity to the needs of our constituents."
Clear Channel Vice President Jim Cullinan said that his company has been talking to council members for years and that the Reyes-Krekorian proposal was "discussed, debated and modified" during an open council meeting.
Dennis Hathaway, president of the Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight, said Reyes' handling of the matter shows that council members are trying to tip the scales in favor of Clear Channel, which regularly donates to election campaigns and has four lobbying firms assigned to City Hall.
"This puts the lie to the idea promoted by Krekorian, Reyes and other council members that all they want to do is get a dialogue going on digital billboards," he said. "When the motion is written by the billboard company lobbyist, it's obviously to put something in motion that the company wants."
The digital signs at issue were installed in Hollywood, Westwood, Venice and elsewhere under a deal reached in 2006 between the council and two companies: Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor. Another billboard firm, Summit Media, challenged the agreement, which was struck down by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge in 2009. The City Council has allowed the signs to continue operating while the case is on appeal.
The Reyes-Krekorian motion did not mention Clear Channel by name or indicate that 100 signs are in jeopardy because of the lawsuit. Phil Recht, an attorney for Summit, said the motion gave a "terribly distorted picture" of the legal issues facing the city.
"We're not shocked to hear" that a Clear Channel lobbyist wrote the proposal, he said. "Summit has been saying it from Day One."
Valencia said Morrie Goldman, Clear Channel's lobbyist, drafted the digital billboard proposal last month after discussing the matter with a Reyes staffer. Goldman brought his two-page draft motion to a Sept. 27 meeting with Reyes. The councilman then recommended one change, she said: that a working group of city officials and billboard companies develop criteria that could legalize existing digital signs.
Goldman sent a slightly reworded proposal on Oct. 1, according to Valencia and documents obtained by The Times under a California Public Records Act request.
On Oct. 10, Krekorian's staff sent an email making more changes, suggesting that the proposed billboard talks include discussions on reducing the total number of signs citywide. The proposal was introduced jointly by Reyes and Krekorian that day and later approved on an 11 to 3 vote.
Krekorian said he was not troubled by the process used by Reyes. There would only be a problem, he said, if council members had failed to vet the proposal submitted to them.
"Who sends the first letter, who writes the first words, is not so significant as what the council does with it afterwards," he said.
david.zahniser@latimes.com
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