Billboards part 1

Last week the LA Times reported a settlement between the City of Los Angeles and two billboard companies, Clear Channel Outdoor and CBS Outdoor, whereby 98 billboards would be removed, in addition to any erected after 1999 sans permit.

The settlement stems from a pair of laws passed by the L.A. City Council in 2002, which mandates yearly inspection fees (and a moritorium on new billboards).

The Times story cites a group called Scenic America (www.scenic.org), whose mantra is the wonderful: Change is inevitable. Ugliness is not.

Scenic America reports extensively on the Billboard industry, as well as other aspects of scenic conservation, including tree conservation, telecommunications towers, transportation planning and design, and utility relocation ("undergrounding").

With most of their reporting and assessments, I couldn't agree more.