“This is one ordinance that I would very much like to see resolved, once and for all.”
– Mark Earnest, on proposed changes to the Haines Borough’s sign ordinance, Nov. 10, 2011
After four years of unresolved discussions on how to change its sign ordinance to accommodate existing signs, the Haines Borough is moving ahead with plans to enforce the existing, controversial law.
“The best way to get rid of a lousy law is to enforce it thoroughly,” manager David Sosa said at a borough planning commission meeting last week, explaining his rationale for seeking enforcement, which he said would apply to off-premise signs that have been up for decades.
Sosa expressed frustration with attempts by the commission and borough assembly to write a new ordinance. “The intent of the adjusted ordinance was to address (existing signs), but no resolution was made between the planning commission and assembly… We can’t wait on an ordinance that may never occur,” Sosa said.
With summer’s arrival, enforcement seems likely to raise hackles. Police action against seasonal, off-premise sandwich signs violating code last July touched off a tiff between police and Portage Street business owners.
The borough ultimately backed off enforcement, and former assembly member Debra Schnabel went to work on a comprehensive sign ordinance that would address a range of questions. She based her proposed ordinance on Skagway’s law.
But other assembly members raised questions about Schnabel’s draft, which remains in an assembly committee. Members of the planning commission last week criticized Schnabel’s product as complicated and cumbersome. Lee Heinmiller said the ordinance was “257 pages long.”
“It’s ridiculous and we’re not going there. It went from a few paragraphs to a small book in nothing flat,” Heinmiller said.
Commission chair Rob Goldberg said Schnabel’s version was a “complete rewriting” of code, not a revision of it.
Heinmiller suggested that off-premise signs could be addressed individually through conditional use permits.
The commission agreed to put the issue on its agenda for next month. A commission discussion “might match the appeals we’re going to get when we enforce the ordinance for the first time in 25 years,” quipped commission member Robert Venables.
In an interview this week, Schnabel defended her draft ordinance, which is actually nine pages long, double-spaced. She said she modeled Skagway’s ordinance because she reckoned that a law that worked for a crowded tourist town would address just about any sign issue that would arise here.
“What town would have more signage issues than Skagway? Absolutely, (the Skagway ordinance) was comprehensive. Admittedly, it was not simple. It was comprehensive.”
To approve signs through the conditional use process, Schnabel said, would be to eliminate rules and leave the process subjective and decisions inconsistent. “Fair and equitable policy is what governments are supposed to create,” she said.
She was philosophical that an ordinance she said she spent a week writing was stalled out in committee.
“Democracy is so time-consuming that you don’t get very much done. So many people can put in so much time to do something so well just to have other, well-meaning people pick it apart,” Schnabel said.