Scottsdale bans political signs in public rights-of-way

Pending the inevitable court challenge or possible legislative action to preempt tonight's action, thanks to the Scottsdale City Council, it is now illegal to post political signs in public rights-of-way (ROW).

After a long and contentious debate that included an attempt to continue the matter for further study, the Council voted 4 - 3 to approve a measure that banned all temporary signs from public property and rights-of-way.

A number of people, both members of the council and of the general public, expressed strong concerns about the free speech implications of all of the proposals (there were three options.)

A couple of Republicans, including the Communication Director of the AZ GOP, Brett Mecum, spoke in opposition to the proposals.

In a not-so-shocking development, they worked an "Iraq" reference into the debate. I was kind of surprised that they didn't try to work in references to same-sex marriage and immigration, too. :)

The primary method that the members of the council and city staff tried to avoid seeming like they were targeting political signs specifically was to insist that these proposals applied to all temporary signs. In fact, one of their dodges used was that the proposals removed references to "political" in the ordinance.

This did not escape notice, however, as Councilman Bob Littlefield noted that "nobody who has followed this debate believes that fiction."

He reiterated his opposition to the proposals. Noting that while he didn't like clutter any more than the next council member, he said that "sometimes principle [free speech] is more important than aesthetics."

Councilman Jim Lane asked rhetorically "if it [the debate] wasn't about political signs, why not exempt them?" Lane also moved to amend the proposal to exempt political signs, but that amendment was defeated 3 - 4.

Vice-Mayor Tony Nelssen also opposed the proposal; in fact, he was the member who moved to continue the matter, but that motion was defeated by a vote of, you guessed it, 3 - 4.

Supporters of the changes from the general public generally cited "visual clutter" or something similar to support the ban of political signs in public ROWs.

Supporters on the council included Councilman Ron McCullagh, the initiator of the entire debate.

He called signs "a blight on the landscape," an assertion that no one present disagreed with. However, many believe that `freedom of speech' concerns supercede 'image' concerns.

Ultimately, councilors McCullagh, Ecton, Drake and Mayor Manross disagreed, and voted for the ban.

In the end, Scottsdale ended up with an ordinance with either be challenged in court or will never be enforced (to avoid a court battle.)

Later!