Scottsdale sign ordinance open houses/forums

The City of Scottsdale Planning and Development Services Department held open houses at the city's Water Campus (Wednesday, December 6th) and at the Granite Reef Senior Center regarding possible changes to the City's sign ordinance.

The forums were mostly information dissemination/gathering sessions intended to let people know about the current ordinance and to solicit opinions and suggestions for possible changes.

The part of the press release publicizing the event that piqued my interest the most was a reference to possible restrictions on political signs placed on private property.

When I went to the forums (yes, I went to both :) ) I found out that as of right now, there isn't any concrete proposal to restrict placement of political signs on private property; what they do have right now is a proposal to "prohibit temporary signs on public property and public rights-of-ways."

Based on the research that I did for an earlier post, the City is saving themselves a lot of headaches (and saving us a lot of tax money spent on legal fees) by leaving free speech on private property alone.

Scottsdale is already considered the most-regulated city in terms of signs, and that's not going to change, even if a full ban on signs on public property isn't enacted.

One resident suggestion that was posted was to require campaigns to post a 'removal bond' - money to ensure that the campaigns remove their signs after the election, money that would be forfeited if the signs aren't removed in a timely manner.

While I understand the rationale behind that idea, it would probably unfairly impact smaller campaigns. A campaign such as one for Congress or even state lege could probably afford a few hundred dollars for a bond; a JP campaign might not be able to tie up 10% to 50% of their entire campaign budget with no return on it (even if the money is going to *be* returned after the election.)

As of right now (the scheduling is tentative), the Planning Commission should hold a hearing on this on January 10, 2007, with the City Council weighing in on the subject sometime in February 2007.

This is worth keeping an eye on, so I will try to make it to both the Planning Commission meeting and the City Council meeting that address this.

Later!!