Hayward 'car loan king' sticking to his guns

HAYWARD -- He carries a 12-gauge Mossberg shotgun, calls himself the King of Car Loans and promises to "blow away" the competition.

If he were standing on Mission Boulevard, Mike Fraga would probably get arrested. But since his larger-than-life image is just a character in a billboard advertisement, there's not much Mission Boulevard commuters can do if his gun-toting stance offends them.

They can shake their fist, maybe, or call the Discovery Bay resident's toll-free number to complain.

"It is not my intention to offend anybody," Fraga told a reporter who called the number last week. "If you want to make an article about it, it's just going to help me because advertising is so expensive. ... It's going to make me more popular."

The billboard, and Fraga's refusal to have it taken down without financial compensation, has made some Hayward residents furious.

"I looked at it and I was so shocked," said Diana Schaufler, a South Hayward resident and member of the nearby United Church of Christ Hayward. "I've never seen a billboard like that, and it made me really angry. I just thought, 'What kind of message is this?' It isn't funny."

Schaufler said she found the sign particularly troublesome because residents have fought hard to expel gangs and gun-related violence from the area.

"This was certainly not the area to glorify guns. Not that any place is, really," Schaufler said. "To just make this so cool is extremely upsetting. There has to be another way to advertise you have good loan rates for cars other than holding a shotgun and saying you're going to blow everybody away."

Fraga has been featured on the billboard just north of the Tennyson Road intersection for a while, but he changed the artwork last month because the previous billboard -- showing him sitting at a desk -- was not getting enough customers.

The theme of the new billboard is the same as his latest television commercial, which shows him pulling up to the Dublin Buick-Pontiac-GMC dealership in a large SUV. Flanked by two sunglass- clad women, the fast-talking Fraga proclaims his business prowess and cocks his weapon.

"We'll put our car loan money where our mouth is," he declares on the TV spot. In an interview, Fraga said most of the comments he's received about the commercials and billboard have been positive.

"Nobody's really looking at that picture and causing crimes," he said.

After a Chavez Middle School teacher tipped off Hayward City Manager Jesus Armas to the billboard last month, Armas called Fraga to tell him the sign was "inappropriate" and urged him to replace it.

Because of constitutional free speech protections, Armas said, the city has no control over the content of advertisements.

Fraga said the sign is simply an extension of the persona he has spent nearly 15 years building up.

"My only way of surviving is word of mouth," he said

"The only thing we could arguably regulate is the land use," Armas said.

City officials battled the billboard industry in the 1980s. Some city leaders wanted the big signs removed from residential and commercial areas and relegated to freeways.

Their effort didn't quite succeed, though a compromise policy prohibits new billboards under most circumstances. And if a billboard is torn down or removed, it cannot be replaced.

Most big signs in Hayward don't garner any controversy: Billboards currently propped up around the downtown area advertise Chabot College, Kohl's department store and Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" movie, which is rated R for graphic violence.

In 2004, substance abuse prevention groups and Latino activists fought to remove a billboard for Tecate beer that had the words, "Finally, a cold Latina." The distributor agreed to take down both the Hayward sign and others across the country.

Fraga said his Mission Boulevard sign, which is his only billboard, automatically expires in May. He said he would consider changing it beforehand, but it costs $2,100 a month to maintain and $1,600 to change.

Many car dealerships sport "special finance" managers who review customers' credit, particularly when they have bad or no credit, then direct them to a car they can afford with the help of loans.

Fraga, who describes himself as a "very special finance manager," has jumped from one car dealership to another over the years and no longer works with Dublin GMC, the dealership advertised on the Hayward billboard. The sign is just south of Hayward's own Auto Row.

Managers at Dublin GMC did not return calls for comment, but an employee confirmed Fraga stopped working there a couple of weeks ago.

Matt O'Brien can be reached at (510) 293-2473 or mattobrien@dailyreviewonline.com.

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Bibliography for "Hayward 'car loan king' sticking to his guns"

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Matt O'Brien "Hayward 'car loan king' sticking to his guns". Oakland Tribune. Jan 22, 2007. FindArticles.com. 16 Jun. 2008. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20070122/ai_n17149039