New database for city of Los Angeles billboards

If you live in the city of Los Angeles then you probably know already that the city over the decades had a lax attitude as far as allowing billboards being erected. There is believed to be 10,000 billboards in the city and as many as a third of those may be illegally placed.

But no one really knows because an inventory of the billboards has not been done. The Los Angeles City Council outlawed new billboards in the city and in 2002 tried to implement a program that would have required billboard firms to pay an annual $314 inspection fee each year. Several firms sued and the last of the legal settlments was reached by the office of City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo in March 2007. The new fee: $186 per year.

And where is the billboard inventory? The city still hasn't completed it and lawsuits continue -- as the city has since started approving new digital billboards, causing some billboard firms to say others are getting preferential treatment. In addition, LA Weekly reported in April that at one point a digital billboard was erected within plain view of city offices, yet city officials didn't realize what had happened. The Weekly also obtained a partial list of billboards in the city and published them (go to page six of the story to get to the links).

All this got Jim Bursch, who publishes and edits West LA online, thinking. How hard could it really be to come up with a list of billboards in the city? After all, they're billboards! They're not exactly hidden from sight.

So, on walks with his dog in West Los Angeles, Bursch started counting and taking photos. He found 64 of the giant signs just on Westwood Boulevard between National and Lindbrook, a distance of a little more than two miles. The collage above is of those billboards. He has also started an online database that builds on the list published by LA Weekly.

Bursch said his next task is to try to match his list with city records to determine if any of the 64 billboards on Westwood Boulevard are illegal. He's also hoping that one of these days the city will get serious about regulating billboards.

"The city should be taxing the hell out of these things," Bursch said. "They are essentially exploiting public property."

He calls it "mindshare," the point being that the city is selling off your views and your attention and that's something that he believes has real economic value. In my view, there's also this little question that has yet to be answered: how much distraction is enough for motorists in the Southland?

--Steve Hymon

Photo collage: Westside Community News Project

Comments

[yours truly, Johnny Dollar]

Wake up. The billboard companies give free signage
to political candidates. Thus, billboard companies are
in bed with your councilman (woman?) (transgender?)
Now, go back to sleep.