As head of the city's zoning board, David Auspitz says he's mindful about being slammed in the press, especially for letting developers stuff mega-condos into tiny neighborhoods. Now it appears he's trying to avoid some of the blowback from yet another raging community issue: The blight caused by unlicensed neighborhood billboards, those 6-by-12-foot posters plastered on many corner stores in poor neighborhoods to showcase pricey shoes and cheap liquor.

The city's Department of Licensing and Inspections says they're illegal, all 895 of them. But Auspitz's zoning board has the power to grant all of them clemency — which Auspitz would likely do in some cases if it weren't for the rage of watchdog community groups like the Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight (SCRUB), which wants all the billboards removed.

But apparently Auspitz is not yet ready to remove any of them. And it seems he is trying to escape responsibility for allowing this blight.

Auspitz is stalling as the billboard company secretly negotiates with the city, according to Carl Primavera, the attorney representing billboard company PNE Media. If his strategy works, the company would keep some billboards and Auspitz would rubber-stamp the deal and avoid being bitten too badly by the watchdogs. Auspitz is wrong to stall. There should be no backroom deals. The watchdogs are right: The billboards should finally go.

Since 1991, when the billboards were outlawed, Primavera has danced with the city from committee to courtroom. But now the attorney confirms that he's in the process of striking a bargain with the city. Primavera says he's trying to save the billboards' owner, Frank J. Nataro of North Jersey, further legal expense.

Primavera is bluffing. There's nothing left to litigate. After 14 years, Primavera has few legal options left, and is now mostly trying to rescue as many billboards as he can. He should get none. Still, Primavera needs time to haggle with the city, which Auspitz conveniently furnished him in a July 28 zoning board hearing. In that meeting, Auspitz chided the billboard company for failing to post any of the bright orange notices from Licensing and Inspection that declare each billboard to be illegal. And then Auspitz granted the billboard company yet another stay of execution, scheduling still another hearing on Sept. 29.

How convenient for Primavera. Auspitz's stall effectively gives PNE's attorney more time to cut his best deal with city attorney Andrew Ross. Deal done, Auspitz could then bless the whole mess in one fell swoop. And as if to further prod Primavera and Ross to get cracking, Auspitz also theatened the outlandish option of holding separate hearings for each billboard. This has the appearance of an empty threat, designed only to force a settlement. But so far, it's working. The zoning board head has arranged it so the only meetings that really matter at the moment are the City Hall negotiations, which until now have not been reported in the press.

This stinks of cigar smoke and backroom funk. The net effect of Auspitz's stalls and threats is that you have the city's most senior attorney haggling with a profiteer's attorney, secretly deciding which historically abused neighborhoods should continue to be blighted.

This is shameful. Auspitz has concocted a travesty of open process, giving lie to his frequent refrain that his zoning board is a "people's court."

But all this still begs more basic questions: Why would Auspitz permit even one of these billboards to continue to stand? Why doesn't he just tear all of them down? Auspitz says he's mindful of the possibility of financial hardship. Although he offers no evidence, he says it's possible that owners of billboarded buildings could be deriving lease payments from the postings. And he adds that the city could be receiving business privilege taxes from the billboards.

This is sheer speculation, unsupported by any available facts. (I've asked Primavera to come up with specific numbers regarding leases and taxes, but he demurred.)

Still, even if we accept Auspitz's assertion of public and private profiting from illegal billboards, is this a really a just and legitimate reason to let this blight continue to depress poor neighborhoods permanently?

Society Hill, where I live, tore down these billboards as part of its renaissance 50 years ago. Will Auspitz now selectively hobble less fortunate neighborhoods from similarly cleaning themselves up?

When word about this private deal gets out, I predict and certainly hope that on Thursday, Sept. 29, neighborhood groups like SCRUB will descend on this people's court.

And they should tell the budding Baron of Blight not to force on poorer neighborhoods what rich ones won't tolerate. Auspitz can end this historic injustice completely, and he should stop stalling and order the removal of every illegal billboard from every neighborhood in the city.