By Bruce Schimmel
The ordinarily affable David Auspitz was red-faced and raging. Two months ago, the Zoning Board chief had scheduled this special meeting to deal with hundreds of illegal billboards that plaster mom-and-pop stores in poor sections of the city. And now, Auspitz was beginning to look like the Baron of Blight.
Auspitz had cut the shadowy North Jersey billboard company a break. After all, the company was represented by legendary real estate attorney, Carl Primavera, reputedly beloved by the administration. Last July, through a technicality, Auspitz had handed the billboard company some breathing time: A couple months over the summer to broker a deal with someone -- anyone -- in City Hall. A deal blessed by City Hall would save Auspitz from the danger of issuing the potentially impolitic order to take all the illegal billboards down.
Now it was Sept. 29. But instead of Primavera appearing in person to announce that City Hall was on board, here was this junior attorney bearing humiliating news. Just about nothing had changed since last July. Except maybe the flavor of malt liquor being pushed this month.
There was no deal with the city. And no, the billboard company hadn't even bothered to take care of the technicality that Auspitz offered as an excuse to postpone the take-down order.
"This is ridiculous," Auspitz roared at the lowly attorney. "You're treating us like rubes."
Yes, indeed, the Zoning Board members must have felt like jerks. They'd been suckered not only by Primavera, but by City Hall insiders. The board had been left hanging, to be pilloried again in the press. A couple board members, like Auspitz, were visibly flushed. One slid so low in his chair that it looked like he was trying to crawl under the hearing table. It was another embarrassing delay, but Auspitz and crew were apparently supposed to grin and bear it.
"Did you meet with anyone in the city?" Auspitz asked the little billboard lawyer.
"Yes… and we're putting together a list to begin to facilitate…" the young man dithered, timorous and twitching.
"I'm sick of this dog-and-pony show," Auspitz shot back, cutting him off. "Who are you meeting with? I want names. Give me the names."
But Auspitz never got any names of the City Hall insiders involved in any billboard deal. Not from the little billboard lawyer or from his big boss, Primavera -- even after Auspitz had him phoned during the hearing to demand that he appear immediately before him. (Primavera never did.)
And nor was Auspitz able to shake loose any insider names from the city's own chief attorney, Andrew Ross, who appeared next at the witness table.
Ross absolutely knew who was meeting with whom privately in City Hall. But those names never surfaced during the hearing. (Later, when I asked again, Ross said he wouldn't tell the Zoning Board, much less tell the press.)
Still Ross did give the Zoning Board chief something very, very special: Permission from on high to do his job. "We are on a separate track," Ross assured Auspitz about the secret City Hall meetings. And, more importantly, "There is no reason [for Auspitz] not to hear this case, and rule on it." Which is exactly what Auspitz did next.
After Ross signalled the city's permission, the atmosphere in the hearing room suddenly cleared. Spectators recalled a moment of shock as Ross slid slowly away from the witness table and Auspitz let loose.
It was crunch time, he announced.
Within 60 days, all 900-odd billboards would come down, ruled Auspitz, or the company would have to apply for a variance to legalize every sign it wants to keep. And if it does try to legalize a billboard, Auspitz promised community meetings to determine if anyone actually wants these things in their neighborhood.
(Let me save some more time: No one does.)
By the end of the hearing, a score of anti-billboard activists in attendance were all grins. Unless the billboard company was willing to face down angry neighbors in community hearings, the billboards would finally come down. And then all neighborhoods, rich and poor, would finally be free of this blight.
Once City Hall had cut him loose, David Auspitz did his job and did the right thing. Now it remains to be seen if Andrew Ross' "separate track" of secret City Hall meetings will derail a train that has been travelling in circles for decades.