Council panel clears way for digital billboard in downtown Los Angeles
The sign would be placed near the 110 Freeway on land owned by a labor union. A portion of its proceeds would go to nearby schools.
A key committee of the Los Angeles City Council moved ahead Tuesday with a plan to place a digital billboard on land owned by a labor union along the 110 Freeway with some of the proceeds going to nearby schools.
Councilman Ed Reyes, chairman of the council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee, called for a portion of the new sign's revenue to go to the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, a nearby high school, and possibly other community programs.
Reyes said he also hoped Plumbers Union Local 78, which owns the freeway-adjacent site in downtown Los Angeles, would win approval for the two-sided billboard by the end of the summer.
"The sooner the better, in my book," said Reyes, who represents neighborhoods immediately west of the freeway. "That means we get more resources into the community."
The proposed billboard is one of several in the works, despite a 6-year-old ban on new outdoor advertising.
An official with one anti-billboard group called the proposal a "cheap sellout," saying the city should not allow digital signs to be used as a bargaining chip when looking to pay for neighborhood programs.
"There's no justification for these high-intensity, back-lit, brightly lighted billboards, regardless of what the leverage is," said Gerald Silver, vice president of Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight.
david.zahniser@latimes.com
