In the grudge match between the City of Portland and the
titans of the billboard world, the city's tag team of Howitzer
Hales and Killer Katz is struggling to get off the mat.
But it's going to cost 'em.
WW has learned that, in two legal settlements
being hashed out this week, the city will tacitly admit
that its lengthy legal assault on billboards was energy
misspent. The final tab could reach $1.5 million.
The match pitted AK Media and StoreyBoards as champions
of free speech against Commissioner Charlie Hales and
Mayor Vera Katz as protectors of the city's eyescape.
AK Media has a virtual monopoly on traditional billboards
in Portland. StoreyBoards owns five video billboards,
such as the one above the Morrison Bridge that frequently
depicts Christ oozing pixels of blood. Both companies
ran into city opposition.
"Clearly, a couple of members of the council feel that
the city's quality of life would be improved if signs
go away," says Len Bergstein, a consultant for Seattle-based
AK. But, he adds, the city's wrestling days may be over.
"A majority on the council favors a reasonable settlement
and getting the city out of places where it doesn't belong."
Nuking billboards has been the city's unspoken policy
for 15 years, but it keeps running into the Oregon constitution,
which grants extraordinary rights to all kind of speech,
including billboards.
In the mid-'80s, the city went to the mat to regulate
billboard content, and three times AK pinned the city
in court on constitutional grounds. Rather than pay huge
damages to AK, the city made a 10-year deal with the sign
company giving its 696 signs a virtual monopoly.
In February 1999, AK hauled the city into court after
a new effort at regulating the signs ("Hitting
the Boards," WW, Feb. 17, 1999). StoreyBoards
jumped into the ring with a separate lawsuit.
The city was pinned to the canvas by its own words. Multnomah
County Circuit Judge Michael Marcus ruled the billboard
ordinance unconstitutional because it effectively regulated
content.
As a result of losing its case with AK last year, the
city owes the sign company as much as $1 million, but
AK seems to be in no hurry to collect. Instead, the company
may prefer to trade the cash for some clear rules from
the city that allow it to continue operating. Although
neither side will show its hand, the inside betting is
that the city and AK will come to terms--no cash, AK keeps
500 signs, and the two will shake hands on size limits.
In the other case, the city will have to pay StoreyBoards
as much as $500,000 in damages, making it the second-largest
monetary settlement the city has ever paid.
What has most people around City Hall utterly perplexed
is why the city continues to set itself up to pay these
settlements (the city currently faces 16 sign-related
lawsuits), especially when Katz has asked city bureaus
to snip 2.5 percent from their budgets.
The good news is that the city now has a new billboard
ordinance that limits billboards to 200 square feet in
size and, more importantly, is expected to hold up in
court. "We now have a good workable ordinance that is
constitutional," says City Attorney Jeff Rogers.
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Willamette Week | originally
published March 8,
2000
