Angry About Supergraphics

Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich allegedly threatened to prosecute city building officials last week if they issued permits for six wall signs at the L.A. Live entertainment complex downtown....AEG, which owns L.A. Live and is seeking to place large signs on the outside walls of its new movie theater, called Trutanich's actions "bullying and political thuggery."... "I'm going to enforce the law. There's a ban," Trutanich said. "I told them what the consequences were. Nobody got threatened. Absolutely not." Trutanich confirmed, however, that in a meeting last week he vowed to file misdemeanor charges against Raymond Chan, interim general manager of the Department of Building and Safety, if he approved permits for signs on AEG's Regal Cinemas.... Trutanich declined to discuss allegations that he threatened Councilwoman Jan Perry....But Perry said the outdoor advertising ban -- which bars new digital signs, supergraphics and billboards facing freeways -- does not cover projects already approved and underway, including the AEG's theater at L.A. Live. Perry said that when she made her case to Trutanich earlier this week, he threatened to send her to jail. ["Trutanich Ups the ante in battle over L.A. Live signs," L.A. Times]

Perry emphasized that she was simply asking about why the final permits had not been given when Trutanich made his threat. "I was merely doing my job and making an inquiry," she told blogdowntown today. "It's a legitimate question to ask."Her motion -- CF 09-2559 -- asks that Building and Safety report "whether it intends to exercise its duties ... to act on pending building permit requests for the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment District." The motion would normally go to the Council's Planning committee, but Perry said that it may instead come before the full Council this week.