Almost everyone at a Pittsburgh City Council public hearing yesterday agreed: The city's decision to allow a 1,200-square-foot digital billboard on the Grant Street Transportation Center, Downtown, was not in the public's interest, because it was done behind closed doors.

"This might be a good deal, but procedurally, what was done was indefensible," said Pittsburgh attorney Jonathan Robison.

He was one of seven speakers at the hearing called by Councilman William Peduto concerning legislation he is proposing that would investigate how Mayor Luke Ravenstahl's administration granted Lamar Advertising a permit for a digital sign at the new transportation center at 11th Street and Liberty Avenue.

Council will consider Mr. Peduto's legislation at its meeting Wednesday.

"This is not about a billboard. This is about a larger issue, protecting a public process," said Councilman Bruce Kraus, who this week sponsored legislation to put an immediate halt to construction of billboards within the city.

The Tuesday moratorium deadline, which prompted Lamar Advertising to submit requests to electrify 42 billboards in and around the city, also triggered a flood of new billboard applications timed to escape its effects.

Proposed changes to the zoning code take effect immediately upon their introduction, even if temporarily, so what is in effect a moratorium on new billboards took effect Tuesday morning.

In addition to Lamar Advertising's requests, Liberty Pacific Media Inc. and U.S. Outdoor Advertising Inc., both located at the same Salem, Ore., address, submitted 23 sign permit applications.

Liberty Pacific executives John Fitzmaurice and Jeff Engelstad initially sought sign permits in 2007. Each gave Mr. Ravenstahl's campaign $12,500 on Dec. 29, 2006. Neither could be reached for comment yesterday.

At yesterday's public hearing, Tony Ceoffe, executive director of Lawrenceville United, cautioned that council's actions regarding the conversion of vinyl billboards to electric billboards may be counterproductive.

"What you're trying to prevent may be exactly what happens," said Mr. Ceoffe.

He added that his organization's efforts to negotiate a deal with Lamar to reduce the number of vinyl billboards on Butler Street in return for two new digital signs-- near the 40th Street Bridge and the entrance to the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium parking lot-- may be in jeopardy because of council's actions.

Now, council has also introduced legislation, which could come up for an initial vote on Wednesday, to put all new sign construction to a vote of council.

Most of the applications filed so far indicate that the firms want to put either digital, vinyl or painted signs at the designated addresses, which are scattered among numerous neighborhoods including the Strip District, Downtown, the South Side, Oakland and East Allegheny.

In some cases, the firms want to put new advertising over old, painted wall signs like the Robinson-Ogilvie Packing and Storage sign on a warehouse at 855 Canal St. in East Allegheny.

But Vivian Loftness, of Carnegie Mellon University's School of Architecture, cautioned council yesterday that a number of cities across the country have already put a moratorium on similar requests.

For Mr. Peduto, however, yesterday's hearing was not about the placement of billboards, "but about the process."

The debate, he said, "is about special rights for none, and equal rights for all."