Signs of Discontent : Advertising: Laguna Beach’s lone billboard may get 15-year reprieve. Council votes Tuesday.

It may be the only billboard in Laguna Beach, but as far as many residents are concerned, it’s one too many.

After 10 years of trying to rid themselves of what some consider an affront to the city’s artistic village ambience, residents are learning that the sign on Coast Highway may stand for another 15 years.

The city, which has banned such merchandising tools as internally lit signs and bus stop advertising, had ordered the billboard be removed in 1994, prompting a lawsuit from the sign’s owners, Van Wagner Outdoor.

Both sides have agreed to a compromise, which the City Council will vote on Tuesday, allowing the sign to stay until Sept. 6, 2010.

It might as well be forever, as far as some residents are concerned.

Former Mayor Ann Christoph, who can see the billboard from her office at the south end of town, said Thursday that she is beginning to wonder if it will ever come down.

“Maybe in my lifetime, huh?” said Christoph, who has followed the community’s attempt to topple the sign since before South Laguna was annexed by Laguna Beach in 1987.

As billboards go, this is not a big one, but it’s still “unsightly” as far as Christoph is concerned.

“It usually advertises something that has nothing to do with the city of Laguna Beach,” she said, “like some development five miles from here.” These days, the sign is blank on one side and announces a Laguna Niguel housing development on the other.

Bill Crabtree, president of Van Wagner Outdoor, said he cannot understand why the city would shun it. Often, he said, it promotes local businesses, helping them to prosper while boosting tax revenue for the city.

“Why would they want to let that go?” he asked. “We’re really performing a valuable community service, especially for the businesses that try to survive and compete in Laguna Beach.”

But some residents simply don’t like billboards.

Christoph recalled that there used to be another one in South Laguna, but a storm whipped it from its posts years ago. “We were lucky with that one,” she said. “An act of God took care of it.”

For 20 years, the goal of maintaining the village atmosphere of Laguna Beach has consumed city leaders.

In 1989, the city approved a development permit for the lot the sign sits on with the condition that the billboard be removed by January, 1994. But Van Wagner Outdoor sued the city, hoping to keep it up indefinitely.

Crabtree said the compromise, which also calls for the city to pay $5,000 of the company’s legal fees, is fair. “We understand the desires of the city and they understand our position,” he said.

But Jeff Powers, a former member of the Design Review Board, said that allowing the billboard to stay creates a “great inequity” and invites other lawsuits by those who think they, too, can get their way by suing.

“If we don’t intend to follow [the city sign ordinance], I think we need to change the ordinance to allow everybody to put up a billboard,” he said.