No Billboard Insider on the Planning Commission

We have successfully prevented Ryan Brooks, the Vice President and local representative of CBS Outdoor, from serving on the San Francisco Planning Commission.

Mr. Brooks requested that Mayor Newsom appoint him to the Commission after being booted from the Public Utilities Commission. The mayor then appointed him to the Planning Commission (what was he thinking?), but his appointment had to be approved by the Board of Supervisors. We mounted an all-out offensive to stop the appointment because the Commission is the governing body that oversees the billboard industry in this town, and his appointment represented a serious conflict of interest that would have led to an easing of billboard controls in a city that hates them.

By working with the Board of Supervisors, the media and San Francisco Beautiful's members, we were able to thwart the appointment to the extent that Mr. Brooks withdrew his name from consideration. Public opinion was clearly against his appointment - take a look at Ken Garcia's article in the Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/Blogs/Fault_Lines?cid=sf-nav-garcia

Billboard industry representatives often get themselves appointed to local governing bodies in order to protect their economic interests. In fact, Michael Colbruno who represents Clear Channel Outdoor, the largest local billboard purveyor, serves on the Planning Commission in Oakland, where he lives. This is nothing new. But it is a flagrant breach of the public trust and will not be tolerated in San Francisco, where city residents voted to ban all new billboards by over 79% of the vote in 2002.

San Francisco Beautiful celebrates another victory against the billboard companies!