sign ordinance Archive

0

THE “DONUT FACTORY” HAS COME TO ALBANY

Written by Ted Anderson

Wow, you have got to check out the new donut and coffee shop that has come to Albany. It is fantastic and going to really give the well-known coffee shop in our area a run for their money. They are located behind the ATT Store at the corner of Nottingham Way and Ledo Road across the road from the Mellow Mushroom. Just look for the colorful air dancer out front that has attracted a lot of attention by the City of Albany anti-business department. The Air Dancer may be gone by the time that this article hits the newspaper because the owner has already been cited by the sign inspector and told to get it removed by Friday, June 25.

Read the rest of this entry »

0

Albany Georgia Government: Sign task farce?

Last year, Albany’s then-new planning director put together a group of government officials and community members, called it a task force, and – using the services of a high-priced consultant – put together a new sign code.

The new code, declared Planning and Development Services Director Howard Brown, was essentially the old code written to Constitutional standards. But this one – unlike the old one – was going to be vigorously enforced, said Brown and his boss, City Manager Alfred Lott.

But when the city began to enforce the law, its flaws surfaced quickly, and Lott directed his troops to selectively enforce the law.

Just like the old days.

Now, according to some sign task force members, Brown is up to his old tricks again. A new task force has been formed. But some of its members aren’t being allowed to vote.

“He’s not listening. He’s even saying in some cases that the only option available is the staff’s recommendation,” said restaurateur Bo Henry. “I’ve got a serious problem with that.”

Henry’s outcry earlier this year about some provisions in the new code helped convince some city commissioners to convince Lott to call off enforcement of some provisions of the new law. Now Henry has been denied a vote by Brown on the task force; Brown claims the businessman is an “alternate” on the task force and not a voting member.

Meanwhile, Tom Knighton said he volunteered to serve, but his offer wasn’t accepted.

“I was willing to put aside my personal biases for the betterment of the community,” Knighton said.

Nancy Brooks, who represents car dealers on the task force, said Brown not only is refusing to allow Henry and others to vote, Brown also has refused to allow the task force to decide whether streamers, pennants and balloons should be allowed at car lots. Currently, the city allows some car lot operators – but not others – to have the attention-grabbing displays,

“He says his data shows that streamers are a safety issue. He supposedly has evidence, but he hasn’t shown it to us,” said Brooks, who is collecting signatures of car dealers on a petition opposing Brown’s efforts to have the City Commission to prohibit the advertising devices. “That was the final issue for us. Every person in the car business is extremely concerned about this. They feel strongly that it will adversely affect their business.

“Streamers have been a staple in the car business for almost 100 years, and now (Brown) is saying that if you allow car dealers to do it, others will do it. No one other than car dealers have had streamers for 100 years. I doubt they are going to start now.”

Brooks said that Brown is “ram-rodding” restrictive sign code regulations past the task force when businesses’ concerns should be a top priority.

“I feel like in this economic time the city should be making it more friendly to survive, not make it more difficult,” she said. “They need to worry more about abandoned and dilapidated buildings and pure ugliness rather than forcing businesses to defend themselves when they are trying to survive.”

In an e-mail, Brown said Tuesday the sign ordinance task force is working productively. But Brown did not respond to questions about – among other things — how the task force was formed, why some task force members aren’t allowed to vote, and why his recommendations are the only options being considered in many instances.

The task force has met twice. It meets again at 3 p.m. Thursday in the Albany-Dougherty Government Center.

Written by Kevin Hogencamp.

2

City may kill sign code: Enforcement moratorium proposed


By Kevin Hogencamp

Loud and clear, Albany commissioners are getting the message from business operators about the city’s new sign ordnance: It’s time to go back to the drawing board.

Indeed, on Tuesday, the commission will consider setting a moratorium on sign code enforcement until after the 2009 election. Meanwhile, Commissioner Morris Gurr, Assistant City Manager James Taylor and other city staffers will meet with business operators at 3 p.m. today (Wednesday, July 1) in room 120 of the Government Center to hear their concerns about the city’s sign regulations.

During a six-month enforcement hiatus, commissioners may “tweak” the ordinance, said Gurr, whose first four-year term representing Ward 3 expires at the end of the year.

“After I had several businesses — used car dealerships, drive-thru restaurant, a mattress store, and other types — voice concerns about the enforcement of the sign ordinance, I took the initiative to ask them if they would agree to participate in a forum with city staff to voice their concerns,” Gurr said. “My main purpose in this is that each one I talked to had a little bit different angle on how the sign ordinance was affecting them.

“So, rather than deal with these concerns one at a time I thought it prudent to bring them to the table all at once for staff to hear and then to make possible recommendations on changes to the sign ordinance. I told every business I talked to that I was just one vote but that I believed they deserved a voice to validate their concerns. It would be up to the entire commission to ‘tweak’ the ordinance and make any changes it may deem necessary. My role at the Wednesday meeting is to only give a short welcome and introduction.”

Murr said he will mull whether to support a sign code moratorium after Wednesday’s meeting.

The sign ordinance also is now on the Albany Area Chamber of Commerce’s radar. Katherine Glover, the chamber’s president, said that two weeks ago, “we picked up a copy of the sign ordinance, and our advocacy team has reviewed all 18 pages.”

“As an organization, we’re in a position now that we’ve not been in prior to 2009, as we now have a registered lobbyist on staff that works not only on the State level, but also on the local level,” Glover said in an e-mail to a chamber member. “We’re therefore now able to better address the advocacy needs of the regional business community.

“Our next step will be to send an electronic communication out to our membership early next week, through our weekly e-newsletter to ascertain which local issues directly impact their business. We’ll then act accordingly once we receive input from the close to 1,200 businesses that we serve in this region.”

After City Manager Alfred Lott refused to enforce the city’s sign ordinance for several years, the sign code was refined last year without an effort to involve businesses affected by changes. Indeed, in reviewing the sign ordinance, city officials set their sights largely son electronic billboards that had illegally sprung up over the last four years while city commissioners and staff looked the other way, saying that its law was unconstitutional. But the billboard industry successfully lobbied commissioners – and the electronic message boards were legalized.

0

Task Force a Farce? Here’s Your Sign

So far, the Albany City Commission appears to be wasting a select group of citizens’ time – this time on the sign code

“And the sign said, ‘Long haired freaky people need not apply’ So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why He said, ‘You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you’ll do’ So I took off my hat I said, “Imagine that, huh, me working for you’”

— Five Man Electrical Band (1970)

I remember being 9 or 10, riding home from school in my big brother’s fluorescent purple VW bug.

The stereo was blaring. “American Pie” had just ended. No one knew all the words, but we certainly pretended to.

Then came the “The Sign Song,” as we called it.

The teen-agers knew all the words, but I didn’t. I would hum along, until the end of the first verse. Then we’d all scream, “Huh, me working for you!”

I was an activist in the making. All 4 feet, 2 of me. Like my bro, I was a chip off the old block. (Around that time, my brother suggested that a fund-raiser be held to buy George Wallace’s assailant another bullet, if you get my drift.)

I’ve grown, albeit barely, since then. But “The Sign Song” still resonates – in more ways than one.

(Chorus) “Sign Sign everywhere a sign Blocking out the scenery breaking my mind Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign”

When it comes to taking positions, choosing sides or otherwise being politically and socially active, I’m out there, on the record, perhaps as much as anyone in this community.

But my take on drafting a new Albany sign ordinance isn’t necessarily as it appears. To the surprise of many, including the namesake of the radio show (Wake Up Albany With Matt Patrick) that I co-host, I’m not against signs – at least, I don’t think I am.

Sure, I have raised more stink about the city’s sign code than anyone. And I’ve asked the question a hundred times – while I was a city hall insider, and since: Why, for goodness’ sake, do we have a sign code if it’s not going to be enforced?

City Attorney Nathan Davis’ perpetual answer – that the sign law is unconstitutional – has always beckoned the obvious question: You’re the municipal lawyer; why don’t you write a new one? Because, Davis says, the issue is a political hot-potato, and local elected officials don’t have the will to take it on.

So, should billboards and on-premises signs change seconds every 10 seconds, once a minute, or once a day? Heck, I don’t know. I’m not even sure that I care. Sure, I want my town to look great, but I also want businesses to make a ton of money. It’s a tossup, to me. That’s how I feel, really: Both sides of the sign debate – all points of view – are arguable, as far as I’m concerned. I came live with whatever the community comes up with.

“And the sign said anybody caught trespassing would be shot on sight So I jumped on the fence and yelled at the house, Hey! what gives you the right To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in If God was here, he’d tell you to your face, man you’re some kinda sinner”

When I heard that that Albany was going to rewrite its sign law, I naively got pumped up about it. What a great way to engage the community, I thought. And if new laws are adopted, I figured, certainly they’ll start being enforced. Finally. And maybe the city will even start complying with the law. (By all accounts, Civic Center ’s marquee clearly is contrary to city code.)

My first clue that the sign issue wasn’t going to be resolved after a genuine, inclusive discussion was that the city hired a consultant to write the new law. My bubble quickly had burst. When we pay our city attorneys and their staff more than $1 million every four years, and there are model sign ordinances posted on Websites throughout the country — including on the state Department of Community Affairs’ home page – why in the world do we need to spend taxpayer money on a consultant?

Then the city formed a so-called task force. Remember the last time we had a task force? Consolidation was the topic. The task force – labeled a “study commission” — met and met and met. It hired a consultant, reached a consensus, and made a recommendation that voters decide what form of government the city should have.

And as Davis would put it, not one of his bosses – the mayor and six commissioners – has had the political will to make a motion endorsing the recommendation.

What a disgusting waste of time. What an insult to the entire citizenry, particularly the task force members.

(Bridge) “Now, hey you Mister! can’t you read, you got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat You can’t even watch, no you can’t eat, you ain’t suppose to be here Sign said you got to have a membership card to get inside Uh!”

Well, indeed, my fears have been fully realized.

On Tuesday, at the first meeting of the so-called sign task force, I learned that the city doesn’t plan to comply with its own law. Already. No matter what the new law says, the city will be exempt from it, said Howard Brown, the city’s planning and development services director.

And when representatives of the sign industry were asked to weigh in at the meeting on the issue of the central issue at hand – how often billboards and other signs should be allowed to change images — a stunning revelation surfaced. It appears that the task force isn’t going to be asked to reach a consensus, at all. Instead, Brown says that he’s sticking to his guns that billboards and other signs should be allowed to display a new image no once a minute, at the most.

Meanwhile, task force member Judy Bowles, the Keep Albany-Dougherty Beautiful executive director, sat through the entire meeting without being asked to provide her perspective on the sign ordinance. Our community’s foremost expert on the issues associated with sign blight had just wasted her (taxpayer-funded) time sitting through the meeting with no apparent purpose.

And finally, Gary Willis – who says he had an inherent issue on proposed changes to the sign code after spending $30,000 on an electronic sign – asked that he or another affected business owner be appointed to the task force.

Willis and I and others in the room were surprised to learn from Brown that Willis’ interests were being represented on the task force by Phil Cannon, who chairs the downtown merchants association. Huh?

Willis says he doesn’t know Cannon, and that Cannon certainly couldn’t represent his perspective on the task force. Besides, Cannon, an attorney who was in a deposition instead, wasn’t even at the task force meeting because Brown didn’t bother checking his schedule beforehand.

Yet, Willis’ request was denied.

“And the sign said everybody welcome, come in, kneel down and pray But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all, I didn’t have a penny to pay, so I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign I said thank you Lord for thinking about me, I’m alive and doing fine.”

At the meeting’s end, it was time to compare calendars and collectively determine an ideal time to reconvene before the City Commission’s Jan. 22 meeting, at which – Brown says – a new sign code will be adopted. (Surely, he jests.)

No dice. A meeting time and date will be announced, the task force was told.

The city isn’t about to make the same mistake twice.

It’s apparent that this task force won’t be asked for its collective recommendation – even on a meeting time.

0

Sign of the Times: City to Obey Law — Temporarily

A 60-day moratorium on permits on electronic signs would mean that the Albany would finally be following its permitting rules – for the time being

After a recent presentation to the Albany City Commission outlining the activities of the clean community commission she directs, Judy Bowles was asked by Ward 3 representative Morris Gurr to outline her holiday wish list.

Just enforce the city’s sign and litter ordinances, Ms. Bowles said, and I’ll be happy.

Well, Merry Christmas, Judy Bowles.

Sort of.

And only temporarily.

The Albany City Commission tentatively voted this week to grant part of the wish of Ms. Bowles, the Keep Albany-Dougherty Beautiful executive director, and operate within the component of its sign ordinance that prohibits electronic signs that change images.

That is, under a so-called moratorium, the city would not issue new permits for electronic message boards – existing ones will continue to exist in spite of the law – for two months.

The City Commission is scheduled to ratify the decision at its meeting Tuesday; existing illegal signs, meanwhile, would be able to continue to operate during the permit moratorium.

“A moratorium will not allow business owners to obtain a sign permit to erect a sign that falls with the scope of being classified as “electronic or digital” sign while these type of signs are under review,” Howard W. Brown, the city’s new planning and development services director, said in a Dec. 4 memorandum to the City Commission. “Additionally, a moratorium will not prevent sign owners from conducting routine maintenance of existing signs.”

During the 60 days, Brown says, an ad hoc committee would review a proposed sign ordinance that – among other changes — allows electronic signs to change their images once every two minutes. The new high-tech Lamar Outdoor Advertising signs change their image six times a minute.

Electronic signs are opposed due to aesthetic and public safety concerns, although there is no conclusive evidence regarding whether billboards cause traffic accidents. While city staffers maintain that electronic message boards are illegal, Albany City Attorney Nathan Davis says that that some key components of the community’s sign ordinance, which was enacted long before he was hired, are unconstitutional.

Mr. Davis’ viewpoint – and thus, the city’s refusal to enforce its law – is enabling more and more sign companies, businesses and churches to erect and maintain electronic message boards. In his commission memo, Brown says the only notable disadvantage of establishing a moratorium on new electronic signs is “a temporarily loss of permit fees.”

Established in the early 1990s, the city’s sign regulations prohibits electronic and mechanical message boards, which the law describes “animated” signs, or “any sign of which all or part thereof visibly moves in any fashion whatsoever; and any sign which contains or uses for illumination any lights, lights, or lighting device or devices which change color, flash or alternate, show movement or motion, or change the appearance of said sign or any part thereof automatically.”

According to city law, the city building official is required to compel violators of the sign regulations to remove the illegal signage or comply with the law.

That isn’t being done in Albany; instead, the city issues permits for what it deems to be illegal signs.

Until Tuesday, that is – if the measure proposed by Brown passes – but only for 60 days. That’s how long City Manager Alfred Lott says it will take for an ad hoc committee including Brown, Ms. Bowles, Code Enforcement Director Mike Tilson, and two sign company representatives to study the issue and make a recommendation to the City Commission.

Sixty days?

My money’s on the city-county consolidation debate being resolved more amicably, and sooner than, this critical community issue.

SEO Powered by Platinum SEO from Techblissonline