We Need Your Support! What Happens in LA…
A situation arose in LA that could prove devastating to businesses of every size. We need you to join us and other industry stakeholders to save on-premise EMC signs.
Six years ago, the City of Los Angeles proposed a very thorough rewrite of their sign ordinance that would have set a terrible precedent.
What happens in LA often spreads to other cities and states.
Our view from the beginning was that the City of LA does not have a sign code issue, but rather the city has a severe enforcement issue.
In the ensuing years, CSA and various business organizations all came together to successfully halt enactment of all negative provisions put forth by the Planning Department. They finally understood the difference between off-site billboards and on-site signs.
Six Year Setback
At the December 2014 LA Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) meeting, the Mayor requested a ban on all on-site message centers. (Note: There was no contention from any neighborhood coalition, nor any issues from the existing permitted on-site message signs.) If this moratorium is successful, six years of our work to draft a proper sign ordinance will fail. Businesses such as auto dealers, malls, theaters, and gas stations will be prohibited from gaining an on-site message center. This has the potential to erode sales and consequently city revenue (sales taxes). The proposed moratorium is unconditional. Churches, schools, museums, and others would lose their right to an on-site message center.
The Plan
The California Sign Association (CSA) wants to again secure the services of a lobbyist to protect on-site message centers. Our treasury is limited: Our goal is to build a war chest of $50,000 to cover our average annual CSA outlay for battling LA over the sign ordinance. We’re asking the major LED manufacturers to contribute $7500.00 each. Further, we are asking other sign companies, lighting companies, restaurants, auto dealers, studios and others to contribute whatever they can, as this impacts their businesses. The International Sign Association (ISA) has volunteered to contribute and we are extremely grateful for their help in this endeavor.
The Planning and La
nd Use Management (PLUM) committee will be revisiting the Sign Ordinance in March and our lobbying effort must be ready to go at that time! We need to raise the funds “now” if we are to be ready!
Please consider a donation of any size, to protect businesses of all types. Donate conveniently and securely online. You can earmark your donation specifically for this LA battle, or contribute to our General Fund. Thank you. Click image or here for Donation page here.
Ed Wasserman is the CSA Co-Chair of the Goverment Affairs committee. In 2010, he produced a 26-slide PowerPoint entitled “Los Angeles Sign Code Enforcement Program,” which was instrumental in shifting the direction of LA’s sign code thinking at the time. That history is documented in an editorial by Wade Swormstedt, Editor, in the Jan. issue of Signs of the Times magazine, here. It is part of the LA history well worth reading, here (PDF): LA Show and Tell