{"id":757425,"date":"2026-04-27T21:04:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/757425\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T21:04:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T21:04:30","slug":"inglewoods-flashy-digital-billboards-could-hit-the-ballot-this-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/757425\/","title":{"rendered":"Inglewood\u2019s flashy digital billboards could hit the ballot this fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story<\/a> first appeared on The LA Local<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jacque Langston was driving down Manchester Boulevard in Inglewood when he came face-to-face with an odd sight: sea creatures floating across one of the city\u2019s new, spiraling digital billboards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy am I looking at jellyfish? That has nothing to do with me,\u201d said Langston, an Inglewood native. For Langston, the video billboards that have come to dominate stretches of Inglewood\u2019s major roads are a square peg in a round hole.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city has never been touched like that,\u201d Langston said. \u201cNow you\u2019ve got a mini-Vegas.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n

If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A digital billboard is seen on La Cienega Blvd. at Florence Ave. in Inglewood on April 18, 2026, in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Dania Maxwell<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

The LA Local<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

Video billboards have proliferated in Inglewood in recent years, targeting the influx of people driving into the city for concerts and sporting events at SoFi Stadium, the Intuit Dome and the Kia Forum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last summer, though, they became a flashpoint for a series of lawsuits that revealed fractures in the once-close relationship between the city and its major entertainment venues. The various parties are now fighting over lucrative advertising territory as major international sporting events approach.<\/p>\n

That legal drama \u2014 reported last week by The LA Local<\/a> \u2014 also threatens to undo the contract that underpins SoFi Stadium\u2019s financial relationship with the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Langston and other Inglewood residents might get a chance to weigh in on the billboards in November\u2019s election, due to a proposed ballot initiative that would bar most advertisements on public streets. But that ballot initiative itself has now prompted its own potentially costly legal fight involving the city, which receives a steadily increasing stream of revenue from billboard companies, and people with ties to the billionaire-owned stadiums.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the bright LED video screens have divided local opinion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vanessa Cowan, an Inglewood resident, said the gleaming screens are a sign of progress in the city. \u201cI like them,\u201d she said. \u201cIt has a different look.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A person walks past a digital billboard on Prairie Avenue in Inglewood on April 18, in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

(<\/p>\n

Dania Maxwell<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

The LA Local<\/p>\n

)<\/p>\n

Khnum Alexander, owner of Swank Men\u2019s Fashion on Manchester, called the billboards \u201cmonstrosities\u201d and said advertising on the screens is too expensive for small businesses like his. He also questioned the new, twisting screens that billboard company WOW Media has recently begun to install in groups of three across the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo we really need more?\u201d he asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Down the street from Alexander\u2019s menswear store, EZ Will Driving School owner Will McDaniel felt differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m all for it,\u201d McDaniel said. \u201cPeople are afraid of change. Change to them feels awkward.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

If city leaders have their way, the Billboard Blight Elimination and Neighborhood Preservation Initiative won\u2019t make it to voters this fall.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is packaged as an initiative by and for Inglewood residents appears to be a product of avaricious puppeteering by a billionaire developer,\u201d lawyers retained by the city wrote in a March 4 court complaint filed in an attempt to block the initiative.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That developer, the city\u2019s lawyers contend, was SoFi Stadium owner Stan Kroenke. Attorneys later amended the complaint<\/a> to include Intuit Dome owner Steve Ballmer.<\/p>\n

\u201cVoter suppression\u201d<\/p>\n

In February, Inglewood resident Shannon Roberts filed to circulate a petition to prohibit commercial billboards on public streets, sidewalks and medians. The petition, a step towards getting the billboard initiative on the ballot in November, also seeks to prohibit business arrangements for the city to profit from billboard deals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPublic spaces belong to people, not billboard companies,\u201d Roberts wrote, adding advertising should instead prioritize public safety messaging, such as emergency alerts, not advertising for profit.<\/p>\n

\u201cInglewood should not be for sale to billboard companies for decades at a time \u2014 especially when such arrangements permanently alter the character of our beautiful city and erase the legacy of those who fought to preserve our neighborhoods,\u201d Roberts wrote.<\/p>\n

Roberts did not respond to a request for comment. When The LA Local reached out to her lawyer, a veteran campaign spokesperson responded.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

John Shallman has been a consultant in Southern California politics for decades and formerly worked for the Clippers when they moved to the Intuit Dome.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He is now working with Roberts to get the anti-billboard initiative on the ballot; their website and campaign are called Inglewood Not for Sale.<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s never seen a city sue one of its residents over an idea they\u2019re attempting to put before voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s voter suppression,\u201d Shallman told The LA Local. \u201cYou can run a campaign against it, but trying to stop it from getting in front of citizens at all, that\u2019s a big red flag. We\u2019re all about voter empowerment. They\u2019re the public\u2019s streets, parks and medians. They control how they\u2019re used and how they\u2019re sold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inglewood Mayor James Butts did not return a request for comment. The city\u2019s lawyers argued in court filings that the initiative shouldn\u2019t be allowed to go before voters because it would unconstitutionally restrict speech, lay out illegal zoning guidelines and hurt the city\u2019s contract with WOW Media, the company that controls many of Inglewood\u2019s billboards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shallman believes that the Inglewood City Council cut a bad deal in April 2025 with WOW Media when the city approved a 20-year contract, which can be extended for decades. \u201cIt\u2019s sort of biblical in its length of time,\u201d he said. \u201cThe city decided that the profit of one company is far more important than the residents who will have to live with these billboards.\u201d<\/p>\n

The campaign has already collected several thousand signatures, Shallman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shallman dismissed the city\u2019s accusations that the coalition he works with does not authentically represent Inglewood\u2019s residents. Though Roberts\u2019 name is on the initiative, the filing fee was paid for by Gerard McCallum II, a longtime associate of Hollywood Park.<\/p>\n

Shallman said the initiative is raising money from all sorts of supporters, including those tied to the Rams and Clippers professional sports teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re talking about an insignificant sum of money that pales in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars that will be spent to sue this Inglewood resident,\u201d Shallman said of the filing fee.<\/p>\n

Inglewood\u2019s November election could be packed<\/p>\n

WOW Media is opposing the billboard initiative through its own campaign, Inglewood Residents for Stadium Accountability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CEO Scott Krantz wrote in a statement to The LA Local that the billboard initiative, which does not include stadium billboards, would deprive the city of up to $2 billion in revenue over 40 years. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe stadiums share none of their advertising revenue with Inglewood residents. We trust the people of Inglewood to see the stadium owner billionaire\u2019s scam for exactly what it is,\u201d Krantz wrote. <\/p>\n

Krantz and Inglewood Residents for Stadium Accountability are also backing a pair of initiatives that could have a big impact on stadiums\u2019 bottom line: The initiatives seek to remove admissions tax caps for large venues and limit how much some parking lots can charge during major events.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Longtime Mayor Butts is also up for reelection in November, as are Councilmembers Gloria Gray and Alex Padilla and a few school board members.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wherever the votes land, Inglewood\u2019s rapid transformation doesn\u2019t appear to be slowing down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTimes are changing around here,\u201d said Rick Todd, who sat at a table on Manchester Boulevard on Thursday, selling jugs of soursop tea. Up the street, a video billboard flicked between an Inglewood police recruitment poster and an ad for \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2.\u201d \u201cThis goes along with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story first appeared on The LA Local. Jacque Langston was driving down Manchester Boulevard in Inglewood when…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":757426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[9110,41729,1582,276,16636,2961,224,5337,58326],"class_list":["post-757425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ballot","tag-billboards","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-inglewood","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-sofi-stadium"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116478704565034293","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}