DUBOIS – Citizens with questions about a proposed sign ordinance in the City of DuBois attended the city’s council meeting Monday night.
The two citizens, Bernie Gabriel and Tom Tarcson, approached council with concerns coming from two similar angles. Gabriel voiced concerns about the city government creating more laws and Tarcson over freedom of speech concerns.
The ordinance, now available online, began being worked on because the current sign ordinance is outdated. The section on commercial signs was described as near “obsolete” by Nancy Moore, chairman of the DuBois Planning Commission.
“There’s a lot of good stuff in there,” said Moore regarding the commercial end of the ordinance.
The problems that both Gabriel and Tarcson had with the ordinance was not with the commercial signage, but private signage. It was conceded that signs could be regulated in public areas. Tarcson interpreted portions as saying private citizens would be limited to one political sign in their yard, and this would require a permit and a fee with said permit. There is also a time frame that says how long a sign may remain up on a person’s property.
Tarcson, admitting being a religious man, said that he had a “right to life” sign in his yard for most of the year. He was worried that this advertisement of his views could be seen as a political statement.
At first City Solicitor Toni Cherry thought that he might have had an outdated copy of the ordinance. The date written on his copy showed it was one of the more recent editions.
“I agree with you. There were some limitations that were removed,” said Cherry.
Things such as a fee were one of the limitations that Cherry believed had been removed for private properties.
The intent of the ordinance as it passed from a council created committee to the planning commission and now to the council was originally the regulation and control of signs. Beginning with the planning commission the regulations in the ordinance were loosened. When it came to political and yard sale signs the concern were for signs put up and left up months after their purpose had been served.
“You are trying to legislate responsibility,” argued Tarcson.
This tied into the complaint by Gabriel.
“Why don’t you just make it a law that you aren’t allowed putting up a sign without a name and phone number in the corner?” asked Gabriel later.
The idea of permits were not to make money, according to officials, but to have a record of who put the sign up in the first place. This would allow the city to know who to contact if the sign is up too long. It would also allow the city to verify that the person received permission to put the sign up at that location.
The citizens commented that the property owners should be responsible if someone put a sign up on their property without permission, not the city.
Another concern by Tarcson was that of borderline signs like his personal view signs. He used the example of a church with a dinner sale, asking if that would be a commercial or private sign.
“Things are interpreted in a lot of different ways today. In the future it could be interpreted that way [as a commercial sign],” said Tarcson.
Council will be taking a closer look at the ordinance, but was grateful to Gabriel and Tarcson proposing the questions. Gray areas such as church dinners was not something the Cherry had considered before the meeting.
“That’s what [the ordinance being made public] is meant for. To get it out to the public,” said DuBois Mayor John “Herm” Suplizio. He had said shortly before that he hadn’t read the ordinance yet himself.