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Planning Policy Commission Auto captions

Thursday, November 12, 2020

6:30 PM · 1h 18m
Topic tracked across meetings:
Amendments to Sign Code AB 8140 1/7
Planning Policy Commission · Nov 12, 2020 Economic Vitality Commission · Mar 11, 2021 Planning Policy Commission · Apr 22, 2021 City Council Regular Meeting · May 25, 2021 City Council Regular Meeting · Jul 27, 2021 City Council Regular Meeting · Sep 7, 2021 City Council Regular Meeting · Sep 20, 2021
Section
1. CALL TO ORDER
1a
Commission Membership
packet pp.3
Staff report:
Planning Policy Commission About Staff Liaison Created in 1983, this commission serves as a Christen Leeson, Senior Planner policy advisory body to the Mayor and provides Email guidance and direction for Issaquah’s future growth through continued review and improvement to the Regular Members City’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan and related 2020 – Ron Faul land use documents. 2020 – Joan Probala 2022 – Joy Lewis Membership 2022 – Janice Carle The Planning Policy Commission is comprised of 2022 – Bill Rinehart seven regular members, with four-year terms; and 2022 – Jason Voiss several alternates, with two-year terms. All 2023 – Vacant members are appointed by the Mayor and subject to confirmation by the City Council. Terms expire Alternate Members April 30 of the year listed. For more information, 2020 – Robin Beukers see IMC 18.03.
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES
2a
Minutes of October 22, 2020
packet pp.5–8
Staff report:
APPROVAL OF MINUTES a) 10-22-20 Planning Policy Commission Minutes Page [0000] CITY OF ISSAQUAH Planning Policy Commission 6:30 PM Virtual Meeting October 22, 2020 MINUTES
4. OTHER BUSINESS / ANNOUNCEMENTS
4a
Upcoming Schedule
packet pp.11
Staff report:
• Schedule
0:14 good evening but
0:16 we will proceed um
0:19 tonight's meeting uh is being held
0:22 virtually because of the
0:25 mandate by the by the governor
0:28 uh the commissioners know
0:32 to ask their questions in the
0:35 chat box and introduce themselves when
0:39 they speak
0:41 for anybody who would like to call in
0:44 and
0:45 make to call in and speak
0:48 at tonight's meeting the information is
0:50 online
0:51 for you so first of all we're going to
0:54 i'm going to ask kristen to take the
0:57 role
1:01 hi this is kristen lisa so commissioner
1:04 voice
1:08 here commissioner lewis
1:12 present commissioner fall here
1:16 commissioner probably president
1:20 and commissioner carl has an excused
1:22 absence this evening
1:27 is there anybody so uh we have four
1:30 members this evening so we do have a
1:32 quorum
1:33 um is there any staff members that are
1:36 on this evening
1:40 yes we have a city attorney daniel
1:43 kinney
1:44 lucy sloman land planning manager lane
1:47 development manager andrea snyder who is
1:49 deputy city administrator
1:51 and kristen leason senior planner and
1:54 gabe gabe shelton
1:55 with staff i.t thank you
2:03 since i'm going blind here since i'm not
2:07 in the meeting actually
2:10 the first thing on our agenda is the
2:12 approval of the minutes from the last
2:15 meeting do i have any
2:19 corrections concerns additions to the
2:22 meeting
2:22 to the minutes
2:27 hearing none the minutes are approved
2:32 this evening we will have a presentation
2:38 on the requirements that this
2:44 supreme court has mandated in regard to
2:47 changes
2:48 and requirements that are
2:51 in the sign code i know that a lot of
2:53 other cities have already worked on this
2:56 but this is our start to begin the
2:59 process to make any changes that
3:03 is necessary to meet all the
3:05 requirements that are set by the
3:07 supreme court so with that
3:12 we are having a presentation this
3:13 evening and i don't have
3:16 christine could you please introduce the
3:18 speaker
3:19 tonight yes our speaker tonight
3:23 is daniel p kinney he's one of our city
3:25 attorneys
3:26 with ogden murphy wallace
3:31 so if he would like to unmute himself
3:34 and
3:35 speak we would anxiously await
3:38 hearing what he has to say
3:42 great well uh first of all can everybody
3:44 hear me okay
3:47 okay if at any time that changes just
3:50 wave your arms or something and let me
3:52 know yeah exactly
3:53 um and so um i appreciate you having me
3:56 here tonight
3:57 this is actually a um a follow-up
4:00 presentation
4:01 i'm not sure if everybody um was either
4:04 on the commission
4:05 or would remember but the sign code has
4:08 come to ppc in the past i don't know the
4:11 exact date off the top of my head but i
4:13 would guess
4:14 a year and a year and a half ago
4:16 probably um
4:17 and it's in process right now and the
4:20 goal of the presentation this evening
4:23 is to really kind of get get everybody
4:26 back familiar with why we're doing
4:28 a revision to the sign code um and kind
4:30 of the reasons behind
4:32 it and what those changes might look
4:34 like
4:35 what you will not have tonight is a
4:36 draft sign code that will come to you
4:39 and after the new year and you will work
4:42 with that sign code given the knowledge
4:43 that we're going to
4:45 kind of refresh tonight and we will then
4:47 be working on the
4:49 draft sign code um for a period of a
4:52 couple of meetings
4:53 um in the first quarter of 2021 uh
4:56 looking for then a recommendation to go
4:59 to uh the city council
5:01 on adoption of a new sign code and so
5:04 what i'm going to do today is i'm going
5:06 share my screen and i will be providing
5:08 these slides following the presentation
5:11 there was a memo that this largely
5:12 tracks as well in your packet
5:14 um and for those on the phone or
5:18 that don't have video there's nothing
5:22 too important that will be on the screen
5:24 that i won't say as well
5:26 but of course if there's any
5:27 clarification as a result of that please
5:30 let me know
5:31 um i i think i'll have the chat screen
5:33 open but if for some reason i don't see
5:35 a raised hand or a question asked please
5:36 feel free to interrupt at any time
5:38 and ask your question um to make sure
5:40 that we're all on the same page
5:42 and then we'll we'll go through
5:43 questions at the end of the presentation
5:46 should there be any
5:47 and that'll be our kind of uh refresher
5:49 to get us back in line for sign code
5:53 okay and i was having a little bit of
5:54 feedback there was that on my anger is
5:57 anybody else hearing that i'm sure it's
5:59 on my end
6:00 i will have to uh make some changes i
6:04 apologize
6:05 oh it's it's fine i just wanted to make
6:07 sure i wasn't doing anything with my
6:09 with my headset um okay so um this is my
6:12 first time on webex so i'm gonna hit
6:14 share and get my screen up
6:30 let's see here i'm gonna pull stuff
6:33 around so i can see
6:35 can everybody see um my powerpoint that
6:38 is not
6:39 yet shared as a presentation yes
6:42 okay so let's go to presentation mode
6:46 and see if it actually
6:50 plays ball
6:54 can you now see just the presentation
6:56 not their little
6:57 prepared side
7:14 i can air it out oh interesting
7:19 um let me see your presentation then i
7:22 have a gray box that's covering
7:24 two-thirds of it
7:28 uh let's see maybe
7:36 that didn't do it
7:59 and that is exactly what i did so let me
8:01 just back out
8:02 and do that because here i thought i was
8:05 being slick
8:06 and i was not
8:23 okay so i think i'm going to see my own
8:25 picture
8:26 projected too so so you can see just the
8:29 the presentation
8:32 yes it looks good great okay thank you
8:34 for your patience i have not done webex
8:36 in seven months that's the first time
8:38 i've had to do webex but anyway
8:39 okay so uh we're gonna be talking about
8:42 this united states supreme court case
8:44 reed versus town of gilbert
8:47 and let's see
8:52 okay um so it's funny i've given
8:56 presentations on this case for a very
8:57 long time
8:58 um this has been this was decided in
9:01 june of 2015
9:03 and i've had to modify this slide over
9:05 the years
9:06 because it gets slowly and slowly
9:08 farther and farther away
9:10 it was this new attention grabbing case
9:12 and now it is
9:13 kind of old news um that's a long time
9:16 ago however
9:17 there are a lot of cities just like
9:18 yours that are trying to revise their
9:20 sign code still
9:21 it does take a lot of time and effort to
9:23 do that and
9:25 there are a lot of different priorities
9:26 out there so
9:28 uh you know it's been a little while but
9:30 we're still moving it forward
9:32 what i'm going to do now is i'm going to
9:33 go over what the town of gilbert's sign
9:36 code provisions
9:37 looked like at the very end i'm going to
9:38 pull up some of your sign code
9:40 provisions to show you some similarities
9:42 between the two
9:43 but the town of gilbert arizona had
9:46 signed provisions
9:47 and they had um the display of outdoor
9:50 signs with without a permit and an
9:52 exempted 23 categories of signs
9:55 three of those that should look
9:57 generally familiar because we see them
9:58 in a lot of sign codes
10:00 were ideological signs political signs
10:03 and temporary directional signs each of
10:06 these
10:06 signed categories or types had different
10:10 regulations that apply to those signs
10:12 so for example i'll just look at the
10:15 size
10:15 uh ideological signs were 20 square feet
10:19 uh political signs were 32 square feet
10:22 um and uh i think it was uh
10:26 six feet for the for the temporary
10:28 directional signs and you've got them
10:30 all put out here
10:31 so what that what that resulted in
10:34 is all of the different types of signs
10:39 had different durational limits
10:41 different size
10:42 limits as you can see on this nice
10:45 little diagram
10:46 that created created a discrepancy
10:49 between the signs
10:51 and so what happened is it created a
10:54 hierarchy
10:55 the hierarchy of signs had more
10:58 restrictions for those temporary
11:00 directional signs and less restrictions
11:02 as you went away from that
11:04 to political signs and then to
11:05 ideological signs
11:08 all of these signs were what i would
11:11 consider
11:11 or described to be um temporary
11:15 non-commercial signs they were all first
11:18 amendment
11:19 uh first amendment uh protected free
11:21 speech
11:24 and so what was happening in this case
11:26 why did it ever get to the supreme
11:28 court um it all centered around the good
11:30 news community church
11:32 this is just a small church they didn't
11:33 have a meeting location
11:35 and they got creative because they
11:37 didn't have a meeting location and they
11:38 would put temporary signs out into the
11:40 community 15 or 20 of them
11:43 um and they put them out um on saturday
11:46 and then remove them on sunday
11:48 basically just telling people this is
11:49 where we're going to be uh
11:51 having our services this week and it was
11:53 just it was their way to communicate
11:56 with their churchgoers and they
11:58 basically just communicated the name
12:00 uh with along with the location of the
12:02 upcoming service
12:03 so uh you know fairly benign when you
12:06 think about
12:06 uh certainly the quantity of sign not
12:09 that many signs were out in the
12:10 community
12:11 and the duration uh they put it out
12:14 early on saturday and move them midday
12:16 on sunday so we're not talking about
12:18 months on end
12:19 um and so there's there's a saying
12:23 amongst lawyers that um you know about
12:25 bad facts make bad law
12:27 um this is kind of your um prime example
12:30 of bad facts
12:31 because this it's just it's this is real
12:34 simple stuff but what happened is that
12:36 they got cited
12:37 the church was cited two times for
12:38 violations of the sign code
12:40 first were exceeding time limits for
12:42 displaying that sign
12:44 uh and second for again doing that and
12:46 and not including the date of the event
12:49 and so again pretty benign uh citations
12:52 here
12:53 um they probably just exceeded it uh by
12:56 a little bit among time
12:57 and um what the court looked at
13:01 um was and and mind you again that this
13:04 this made its way all the way to the
13:06 united states supreme court
13:08 um but in in gilbert arizona the sign
13:11 regulations
13:12 um in order to understand those
13:14 restrictions that would apply to any
13:16 sign you have to look at the content of
13:18 the sign
13:19 and if you think back on those
13:20 categories in the hierarchy that we saw
13:22 and that i described
13:24 temporary directional science political
13:26 science ideological signs
13:27 along with others all had different
13:30 regulations depending on what was
13:32 written on the sun not where the sun was
13:35 located or how it was constructed or
13:37 whether it blocked a road
13:39 it was all about was it a temporary
13:41 directional sign
13:42 if so then here's your regulation or
13:45 political here's your regulation
13:46 and they were all different and so the
13:48 signs were treated differently
13:51 and so in that situation on its face the
13:54 sign code
13:55 sign code was a content-based
13:58 regulation of speech and so that's the
14:01 key phraseology is content-based
14:04 regulation of speech
14:05 that we're going to continue to talk
14:06 about and that became the focus of this
14:08 united states supreme court case
14:12 and so i'm going to talk just very
14:15 briefly kind of
14:16 some legal stuff don't don't worry about
14:19 but this is just kind of the reason why
14:20 we care about it
14:22 when you have something that is
14:23 content-based in other words when you
14:25 treat something differently based upon
14:27 the message that it's saying
14:29 um that is then presumptively
14:32 unconstitutional
14:33 and the government has to attest which
14:35 is called strict scrutiny
14:37 has to be narrowly tailored to serve a
14:40 compelling government interest
14:42 this is a very very challenging um
14:45 uh scrutiny to go through um it's
14:48 typically always fatal it's very very
14:50 very hard to get through
14:52 um and so when you find yourself in a
14:54 position of having
14:55 content-based regulations you also find
14:59 yourself in a position
15:00 of being susceptible to legal risk and
15:02 having that legal risk being
15:04 very challenging for the city to
15:06 overcome
15:09 the other side of this that kind of the
15:13 next layer down is intermediate scrutiny
15:15 and this is time
15:16 place manner restrictions so we are not
15:19 regulating based on the contents we are
15:22 regulating based on things like time
15:24 place manner so the time or duration
15:26 that it's in
15:27 in a particular location or how it is
15:30 put up
15:31 but you're not looking at the content so
15:33 you remove that content-based
15:35 restriction component you still have to
15:38 justify the government can't just do
15:40 anything
15:42 and the intermediate scrutiny must be
15:44 content neutral again that contract the
15:47 content
15:48 component is being removed it must be
15:50 narrowly tailored to service significant
15:52 government interest
15:53 as opposed to compelling again kind of a
15:55 legal distinction but it is a
15:57 level down you must label open ample
15:59 alternative channels for communication
16:02 don't worry about these two tests i only
16:04 put that there to just show
16:06 that when you do have content-based
16:08 regulation it's a very challenging
16:10 uh level of scrutiny and when you don't
16:13 have it that scrutiny
16:14 scrutiny drops down to a more manageable
16:17 level
16:17 um so that's the only purpose don't
16:19 worry about the legal stuff
16:22 um and so when the town of gilbert
16:25 arizona
16:26 had this legal challenge they put
16:28 forward reasons those
16:30 government interests to substantiate
16:32 their
16:33 uh restrictions their content-based
16:35 restrictions
16:36 and they put forward both aesthetic
16:38 reasons and traffic safety reasons
16:41 those are two justifications that as a
16:43 municipal attorney i see all the time
16:45 as reasons for different government
16:48 regulation
16:50 but when the court was analyzing it
16:53 the reality was the content of the sign
16:57 had nothing to do with either the
16:59 aesthetics
17:00 of the sign or the traffic safety
17:02 because it could have been
17:03 physically the exact same sign as a
17:05 political sign
17:06 but wouldn't have been allowed because
17:08 of the content on the side
17:11 and so they weren't able to meet that
17:14 the town of gilbert arizona was not able
17:16 to meet its burden
17:17 to prove that it went
17:20 past that scrutiny level that very very
17:24 challenging
17:25 level of scrutiny and so um
17:28 what we need to think about is when we
17:30 are revising your signed code
17:32 we need to make sure that we have
17:36 proper justification for all of the
17:38 restrictions that we have
17:39 and then of course assuming we do not
17:42 have
17:43 content-based restrictions that level of
17:46 scrutiny is
17:47 is lower though still still does exist
17:52 and so what i've tried to do in these
17:54 presentations is
17:56 boil this all down into a kind of a rule
17:59 and so
18:00 the rule and i'll read it from the
18:02 screen for everybody it's
18:03 if when regulating speech the regulation
18:07 is split into
18:08 categories which require you to look at
18:11 the content of the sign
18:13 and those categories are treated
18:15 differently
18:17 that regulation is content based on its
18:19 face
18:20 and must withstand strict scrutiny
18:23 and i gave a presentation on this to the
18:26 code enforcers
18:28 annual conference a few years back and
18:31 that that was the
18:32 the perfect group to talk to this about
18:33 because it was easy to tell them
18:36 if if you're going out and you're doing
18:38 code enforcement
18:39 and you see a sign and you wonder to
18:41 yourself is that
18:42 a code compliant sign or not if you have
18:45 to read the sign
18:47 that's content-based regulation and it's
18:49 going to be
18:50 very problematic or if you don't have to
18:53 read the sign
18:54 and you're able to apply the city's sign
18:57 code to it in your code enforcement
18:59 then you should be fine in terms of
19:01 strict scrutiny so
19:03 that that's the general rule and um i
19:06 think we'll keep that in mind as we're
19:07 doing our work on the sign code
19:10 to make sure that the content of that
19:13 sign that we're looking at
19:14 doesn't get brought up in the context of
19:18 what we're looking at for regulations
19:22 so uh so i'll just go back real quick so
19:25 when we're thinking about this and uh
19:28 you know
19:28 uh there there are legal nuances to to
19:32 to this case as as one would probably
19:35 assume
19:35 and one of those is that the case dealt
19:40 exclusively with non-commercial signs so
19:42 when you
19:43 looked at those categories that were
19:44 listed political signs temporary
19:47 directional signs
19:48 things like that those are
19:50 non-commercial commercial speech on the
19:53 other hand
19:54 is regulated with a different
19:58 level of review it is less protected
20:02 at compared to first amendment free
20:04 speech so our personal
20:06 right to express ourselves through
20:08 politics or religion or about
20:10 really any topic that is first amendment
20:13 protected whereas
20:14 commercial speech you know mcdonald's
20:17 right to have
20:18 their you know golden arches put out in
20:21 front
20:21 of their business that is certainly
20:24 still
20:24 protected but it is at a lesser degree
20:27 and so
20:28 we will in the sign code the draft have
20:31 regulations for commercial speech and
20:34 for non-commercial speech
20:36 one of which will be a little bit more
20:38 restrictive than the other
20:39 and that frankly most certain codes
20:41 already had that
20:42 but when we think about content-based
20:44 regulations
20:46 we are primarily looking at the
20:49 non-commercial speech
20:51 and we will still be using those
20:53 principles
20:54 when it comes to the commercial speech
20:55 but it will be um just a bit
20:58 less of a focus
21:01 and so some additional considerations um
21:06 so the the city um has quite a bit of uh
21:10 regulation on signs throughout
21:11 different areas uh of uh different
21:14 standards
21:15 in the city um your municipal code has
21:18 the sign code included in there that's
21:21 imc 1811
21:23 you also have the old town design
21:25 standard central elizabeth
21:26 development standards rally development
21:28 agreement along with others
21:30 so i'm going to pull a couple of those
21:31 up on the screen and
21:33 the goal of the city in this revision is
21:36 going to be
21:37 on number one to address the content
21:39 neutrality uh that we talked about
21:41 earlier that primarily touches on
21:44 provisions of your code that have
21:47 regulations based on the content and
21:49 then you're also going to be looking to
21:51 consolidate some of these standards into
21:54 one unified sign code
21:56 so that when people come into the city
21:58 looking to install a sign
22:00 they're not trying to figure out which
22:02 of a few different
22:03 uh sets of standards apply to them there
22:05 would be one
22:07 and so it's consolidation as well
22:10 and so the next steps uh for ppc
22:14 is that uh staff will be bringing to you
22:17 a draft sign code that we've been
22:19 working on it will be presented to you
22:21 after the
22:22 first of the year you will have um i
22:25 would
22:25 think probably at least a couple of
22:27 touches with the uh
22:28 draft sign code and so with this kind of
22:32 primer on why we're here and what we're
22:34 gonna do
22:35 we'll then walk through what that sign
22:37 code looks like
22:38 and talk through the provisions there is
22:41 a good chunk of it that's going to look
22:43 familiar to a lot of people
22:44 um it's coming from some of those
22:46 existing sources
22:48 and then there's a portion of it that is
22:49 going to look different because we had
22:50 to revise it to
22:52 make it compliant with the content
22:54 neutrality rules that were just talked
22:55 about
22:56 and so you'll have the opportunity to
22:58 get familiar with the new code
23:00 provide your input and then our hope
23:02 would be that you would be able to make
23:03 a recommendation to city council
23:06 in q1 of next year uh
23:09 on on the draft sign code and then city
23:11 council will then have the opportunity
23:13 to consider it and move it forward
23:16 and so that's the end of my presentation
23:19 and so what i'm going to do
23:20 since i actually can't see anybody i'm
23:22 gonna
23:23 stop sharing um
23:27 there we go so i can see if there's been
23:29 any questions piling up or anything
23:31 okay um
23:34 so i don't see any questions any
23:37 comments or questions
23:38 in the chat right and so
23:41 let's see anybody have any comments
23:46 oh there's a question from commissioner
23:48 lewis
23:49 yes thank you joan commissioner joy
23:54 lewis here i actually have about five
23:55 questions but i'm going to kind of go
23:56 around robin because i think this is
23:58 such a nicer way to do a discussion when
23:59 we're kind of
24:00 just getting information um i loved
24:04 this uh homework assignment this week
24:06 because it made me
24:07 read the supreme court decision and all
24:09 the all the different um
24:11 um opinions that were put forth and i
24:13 kind of wanted to
24:14 make sure that i was understanding that
24:17 while this was specifically addressing
24:18 the temporary um directional signs
24:21 it's farther reaching and so we're
24:22 talking about non-commercial signs does
24:24 this also apply to our sign code for
24:26 commercial signs as well are we redoing
24:28 that as well
24:30 so so great question um the
24:33 the holding in read i would view
24:36 as not being applicable to commercial
24:38 signs
24:40 however that does not mean that the
24:43 principles that were applied in that
24:45 case
24:46 wouldn't be applicable and so what we
24:49 um i've just used kind of you know the
24:51 absurd as an example
24:53 we're not going to have certain
24:55 regulations for
24:57 bakeries that are different than um
25:00 uh coffee shops or or whatever you know
25:04 that that is content based and so the
25:07 levels of scrutiny might be different
25:09 because it is
25:10 commercial speech which has lesser
25:11 protections but we still aren't going
25:14 to pick and choose who gets more speech
25:17 easier speech um that that's with all
25:20 that said
25:21 the commercial regulations that we will
25:24 have in the draft zone code
25:26 will very much largely
25:29 uh mirror provisions that are in
25:31 existing
25:32 uh code or standards uh for the city and
25:36 we are not going to be re redoing
25:40 you know all of the marquee sign
25:42 regulations for the city
25:44 we will be pulling together some
25:46 standards that in some situations
25:49 may look a little different depending on
25:51 the source for a different area in the
25:53 city
25:54 and so this group along with staff we
25:56 will
25:57 will synthesize those in the in the best
25:59 way possible for the community
26:01 um but but the the baseline and what
26:04 we're working with
26:05 will largely be unchanged okay i loved
26:09 the the idea of saying if i if i need to
26:12 read the sign then it's content based
26:14 and therefore
26:15 not legitimate right i like that idea of
26:17 having to me that's a really good way of
26:19 kind of looking at it
26:20 um and i was curious specifically about
26:22 our code
26:23 in terms of timing specific signs so a
26:26 good example that our we just went
26:28 through an election right so you put up
26:29 signs
26:30 specifically for a purpose and a period
26:32 of time but the way that i was reading
26:34 it was that time
26:35 based is now wrong you know so that
26:38 basically if you're able to put that
26:40 sign up for that
26:41 particular purpose then it can be up all
26:44 year long
26:45 um is that how do you can you help me
26:48 clarify kind of
26:48 the specific nature of what we're
26:50 allowed to do as far as
26:52 a time duration um example for science
26:55 yeah so you're touching on actually a
26:59 little bit of a problematic area
27:00 particularly in washington
27:03 so washington has a washington
27:07 pace law that protects political speech
27:11 and the durations for signs related to
27:13 political speech
27:15 now you layer that with the united
27:18 states supreme court decision that says
27:20 that we can't regulate based on content
27:23 that means that whatever we have to do
27:25 in washington for political signs we
27:27 really have to do
27:28 for all signs because we can't look at
27:31 the political side and treat them
27:32 different
27:33 and so when we have these um
27:37 compounding effects of state
27:40 case law and federal case law what it
27:43 essentially means
27:44 in my view is that the um durational
27:48 limits are going to be uh a challenge
27:52 [Music]
27:53 what we've we we've we had the draft
27:56 that we're working on
27:56 attempts to address that and tries to
27:59 put for example for
28:00 the temporary signs which it frankly is
28:03 where most of this comes up
28:05 um puts a a limit on how long those
28:08 signs can be up
28:09 that can be extended to a period of time
28:12 that would be
28:12 reasonable for no matter what type of
28:15 temporary sign it is
28:17 um that we think would be workable
28:20 under the law um but but it is a
28:23 challenge i mean you've touched on a
28:25 key point that is challenging thank you
28:28 mr kenny
28:30 i have a question from commissioner 12.
28:35 thank you madam chairs this is
28:36 commissioner fall and to uh
28:38 thank you joy you actually hit one of my
28:41 questions as well
28:42 talking about the supreme court uh case
28:44 there um
28:46 in discussing commercial signs
28:50 um there is a
28:53 commercial a retailer that we have here
28:55 in town
28:56 that i see that has a two signs out in
28:59 public view
29:00 they're um uh i'm not sure what they
29:03 call them tp signs
29:05 um those are the fold up signs very
29:08 temporary
29:08 like an a-frame yeah a-frame thank you
29:12 how does that impact
29:15 how does that fall into our to this
29:18 conversation
29:19 i mean are they allowed to have that up
29:21 for indefinite because it's up
29:23 every day for the last several weeks i
29:25 think probably because of covid
29:28 but where does that particularly fall
29:31 into this conversation
29:33 how would we treat them well so i mean
29:37 it falls directly in the middle of our
29:39 conversation so so
29:41 that that will be something that we will
29:42 all be talking about
29:44 and um temporary commercial signs
29:48 have a home and a sign code just like
29:50 other types of signs
29:52 um as do a-frames and um the draft that
29:55 we're putting together
29:56 and again uh not ready for you yet but
29:59 uh we'll have allowances for uh
30:02 size and construction and setbacks
30:06 uh of where it would be placed for signs
30:08 of that nature
30:09 so that we could ensure that it is
30:12 placed in a location
30:13 that is safe for pedestrians and cars
30:17 that doesn't get in the way of ada
30:19 accessibility for example
30:21 um isn't too tall so people can see over
30:24 it and things like that
30:25 and and for commercial signs the idea
30:28 would be that they would be placed in
30:29 locations that
30:30 are either on private property or in
30:33 that close proximity to the to the
30:35 business but in the right-of-way and
30:37 that would be your typical a-frame that
30:38 has the
30:39 daily drink specials or something like
30:41 that um or or
30:43 open and what have you and so
30:46 yes that is absolutely something that
30:48 will be part of this and we'll be
30:50 looking at
30:50 we want to make sure that we take into
30:52 account that that's certainly
30:55 a valuable tool
30:58 for for small business in particular to
31:01 communicate with the public
31:03 about that business and so the goal
31:06 absolutely would be to facilitate
31:08 the businesses in the community and
31:10 utilizing what's available to them in
31:12 the science code
31:13 but also protecting the aesthetics and
31:15 the safety of the community
31:16 when those signs are out okay
31:20 okay thank you so we have a
31:22 clarification i guess it's a comment
31:24 from
31:25 commissioner voice
31:28 thank you madam chair commissioner boyce
31:31 here and thank you mr kenny
31:33 so because this is a refresher course
31:37 the way i heard your presentation is
31:39 basically
31:40 a political sign and i want to thank my
31:42 fellow commissioners because
31:44 they basically answered ask my question
31:46 but i'm going to ask this
31:48 so if you have a political sign that's
31:51 within the regulations
31:53 and to commissioner lewis's point if you
31:55 have to read it in order to understand
31:57 that's where you're saying the
31:58 discrepancy is right now
32:00 technically you wouldn't be able to take
32:02 it down a month after an election
32:04 and that's where you're saying the
32:05 problem arises with the supreme court
32:08 is because if there's no if you can't
32:09 impose
32:11 a time limit on all content based signs
32:14 you can't do it just for the hierarchy
32:16 like you had in your graph
32:17 it has to be the same regardless which
32:20 means
32:21 um you know somebody could be running
32:23 for
32:24 congress all year round is that kind of
32:28 what i'm understanding
32:30 so um generally speaking yes
32:34 the um i guess the the clarification
32:37 that i would say
32:38 is we will have um durational limits but
32:42 what we won't have
32:43 is you can only have political signs
32:46 60 days before election and five days
32:48 after election
32:49 we wouldn't have something that's
32:50 written like that but all temporary
32:53 signs may have a
32:55 60 days for the original uh
32:57 authorization
32:58 plus two additional 60-day allowances or
33:01 something like that
33:03 what happens to what happened sorry to
33:05 interrupt so what happens to those
33:07 those directional ones like in gilbert
33:09 for the church if
33:11 if they just because ideally they would
33:13 be able to have those same time limits
33:15 right so now
33:16 the church that met on november 12th you
33:19 know it's december 12th
33:21 and they're saying hey we don't have to
33:22 pick up our signs we have you know this
33:24 time
33:25 allotted for us yes i mean
33:28 you've touched on something we actually
33:29 talked about a little bit earlier today
33:30 we have in the past is
33:32 you know could somebody you know run for
33:35 the next election
33:36 today you know and and have that be a
33:38 year or two years four years away
33:40 or something like that and yeah and
33:43 there there's not a whole lot that we
33:44 can do about that
33:45 um because there are situations where
33:48 somebody
33:49 will want their name out there at a
33:51 different time frame
33:53 and we can't say we definitely can't say
33:56 you can't
33:56 run for office now or you can't you know
33:58 put yourself out there in a political
34:00 sense
34:01 because it's not 60 days or whatever 120
34:04 days before an election
34:05 um and so what we're trying to do is
34:07 remove those
34:09 um uh judgments not not judgments in bad
34:13 way just judgments on what the sign says
34:15 and
34:15 and how it should be treated out of the
34:17 equation and look
34:19 more to all of the things about making
34:21 sure that it's maintained and in good
34:23 quality and i think
34:24 for a lot of temporary students though
34:26 not all but a lot that'll
34:27 uh get a lot of them uh off the street
34:30 where they're placed and then having the
34:32 durational limits
34:34 um that's not related to the event but
34:36 that would apply to all the signs
34:38 um and making sure that they are
34:40 actively engaged in that sign
34:42 and if they're not then they wouldn't
34:44 get that next they wouldn't come in for
34:46 that next extension
34:47 and so you could have possibly signs
34:50 that would be located out there
34:52 longer than their useful timeline you
34:55 know if
34:56 if they truly are putting something out
34:58 that they don't need it after three days
35:01 there is a chance that they that sign
35:03 could be out there longer
35:04 in those three days only um and
35:07 you know there are you'll see in the
35:09 draft code there's
35:11 um a structure that we're still working
35:13 on and we will
35:14 present to you in more final form but
35:16 for an application for temporary science
35:18 that would be
35:19 through the internet and they would put
35:21 in information about their sign and one
35:23 of the things that could be included in
35:24 there
35:25 is the requested duration that would be
35:29 noted in the system with with the
35:31 approval and then that way
35:33 you know if you don't need all 60 days
35:35 you could put in five and then you could
35:36 go take it down
35:38 um and so part of it is people using the
35:40 system and using it properly
35:42 yeah and i get that and hopefully people
35:44 will be good citizens
35:46 one other thing mr kenny is so if i just
35:50 so i understand the statute right coming
35:51 from the supreme court so if we have a
35:53 large
35:54 banner and regardless of what it says
35:57 that wouldn't be content-based because
35:59 you would know okay that's just
36:00 inappropriate
36:02 in the right-of-way right next to
36:03 boehm's pool right you having a
36:06 you know 25-foot banner you don't really
36:08 need to look at the content you just say
36:10 what is that yes and that would
36:12 immediately go to intermediate
36:14 scrutiny it wouldn't be um strict
36:16 scrutiny
36:19 so two points on that number one
36:22 what you described is a situation there
36:24 can be prohibited sign
36:26 types and there can be restrictions on
36:29 science for example banners is a great
36:31 one
36:32 i anticipate banners not being allowed
36:35 across the right of what and so they
36:38 wouldn't
36:38 stretch across streets as one example
36:41 and so that would be
36:42 um that would be one example that the
36:45 other example would be
36:46 banners you know uh in a parking lot or
36:49 against the structure
36:51 and that would have you know size length
36:54 you know size of font on it securing it
36:57 properly so it doesn't become a flank
36:59 risk
37:00 literally um and things like that that
37:02 would be that intermediate scrutiny
37:04 that would be much easier for the city
37:06 to get by because
37:08 like you said we're we don't care if
37:09 it's a you know the local swimming club
37:12 or if it's
37:13 a bakery that has the banner as long as
37:15 it's
37:16 no more than 10 feet long no more than
37:18 15 square feet
37:19 in in size and you know is secure or
37:23 something like that
37:24 okay and then my final question and i'll
37:26 i'll yield
37:27 is as far as private property is
37:29 concerned so i'm thinking of
37:31 isoqua hobart and i know it's it's
37:33 they're different regulations
37:36 as far as being incorporated and whatnot
37:38 but private property
37:39 because we saw a few of those political
37:41 signs heading out to highway 18.
37:44 that is that under the city's purview
37:47 even though it's in the right of way i
37:48 wouldn't think so right that's private
37:50 property they can put
37:52 you know a huge sign out there like they
37:53 did political signs that were out there
37:56 for the last couple months and that even
37:59 if it's on private property within the
38:00 city limits is that a different story
38:03 so the sign code does apply uh apply to
38:06 private property
38:07 and um again we're we're going to try to
38:11 draft something
38:12 that treats that sign just like any
38:15 other sign that they may want to put on
38:16 their property
38:18 of different sign physical
38:20 characteristics
38:22 i would say that probably there's
38:25 some more leniency when you're on
38:27 private property
38:28 but generally speaking the sign code
38:31 applies
38:32 when those signs are visible to the
38:34 general public
38:35 utilizing the rights of way in streets
38:38 and sidewalks and whatnot
38:40 it would not apply of course in your
38:42 home or
38:43 inside of business when you can't see it
38:45 it might apply to an outward facing sign
38:48 that's in a window
38:49 to a business you see the easiest
38:51 example is bars you know they
38:53 tend to fill their windows with neon
38:55 lights or you know paintings or whatever
38:57 pictures those things would be covered
39:00 by the sign code
39:01 um but you know for example a um
39:04 qfc parking lot is going to have you
39:06 know the qfc monument sign up front it's
39:09 going to have the qfc on the building
39:11 and everything that's certainly a you
39:13 know different example but it's equally
39:15 on private property and equally covered
39:17 by the sign code as would somebody that
39:20 wants to put up uh
39:21 signs into their into their front yard
39:23 just because it's your front yard
39:24 doesn't mean you can put up
39:26 you know two by fours with big you know
39:28 uh uh
39:30 plywood you know 40 foot sign for your
39:33 favorite political candidate
39:34 um it would still be covered well it's
39:36 good to know
39:38 all right thank you mr king appreciate
39:39 it um i have a comment from
39:43 lucy sloman are you there
39:47 hi i am thank you uh daniel
39:50 uh before we start any panic in town
39:54 um there are a lot of
39:57 there are city-owned banners that are
40:00 erected over right-of-way
40:02 for events such as salmon days
40:05 and um i don't think we have to go into
40:08 all the details
40:10 but um i um
40:14 wonder if you could speak to the
40:15 distinction because
40:17 i just don't want people concerned that
40:20 some
40:21 of the uh favored institutions are going
40:25 to disappear
40:26 um through the change of the sign code
40:29 i i appreciate the opportunity to
40:31 clarify so um
40:33 i think there's two clarifications there
40:35 the first one that's the quickest and
40:36 simplest
40:37 is that the draft as it currently exists
40:40 does have a
40:40 banner permit and the city will have
40:43 particular locations
40:44 with a particular permit to make that
40:47 allowance available
40:48 for some of those type of situations and
40:51 i apologize for not clarifying that
40:53 earlier but yes that's absolutely
40:55 available
40:56 and then um on a related note though
41:00 slightly different
41:02 government speech is a whole separate
41:05 beast if you will and so when we think
41:07 about signs in the right of way
41:10 a lot aside from the political signs
41:12 most of the things that you think about
41:14 aside from that are going to be
41:15 government speech so
41:17 street science stop signs you know any
41:20 sort of cautionary thing
41:22 um all of those are um
41:26 i don't want to say exempt from the sign
41:28 code but they're just not covered by the
41:30 sun code those are
41:31 all put forward by the city
41:34 there's no regulation of that there's no
41:36 um like
41:37 aside from the city code and what by law
41:40 needs to happen
41:41 and so when we think about oh we got to
41:43 make sure you know that we have these
41:45 signs or anything all the government
41:46 stuff is kind of in its own world
41:49 and so we don't need to worry about that
41:50 and that could include
41:52 uh things like um uh the the penance
41:56 that would go on the side of a light
41:58 pole
41:58 or something like that that the
42:00 government would put out
42:01 for you know voting or or whatever it
42:04 may be that that's going to be treated
42:07 um in its own category
42:11 so thank you for the question lucy
42:13 because that's exactly what i was going
42:15 to ask
42:16 i had these horrible feelings of all of
42:18 the signs that go down front street all
42:20 the banners would be
42:22 illegal and that that would just be
42:25 awful
42:26 i do have a clarification
42:31 um when you say if you
42:34 have to read it give me an example
42:39 between a sign that you don't have to
42:41 read that's legal
42:42 and one that you have to read
42:47 well i mean um so so the easiest example
42:50 is if if they're
42:53 excuse me if there is a political sign
42:57 set of regulations and you have to read
43:00 the sign to see whether it's a political
43:02 sign
43:03 or it's a temporary directional sign or
43:05 mcdonald's sign or
43:06 anything else that's how you
43:09 that that's the reading that i'm talking
43:11 about the other
43:12 way to look at it is is is this
43:15 particular sign
43:18 located too close to the traveled
43:20 portion of the right-of-way
43:22 or is this sign too tall or is this sign
43:25 made out of a material that it's
43:27 dilapidating
43:28 you know there's a lot of um qualities
43:31 to signs that those time place
43:32 management restrictions would look at
43:35 that you would never have to say to
43:37 yourself is this a political sign
43:39 or you really wouldn't it what is
43:41 printed on the sign
43:42 wouldn't matter at all the closest
43:45 you're going to get to that with a time
43:46 placed manner restriction and the code
43:48 has this in some different
43:50 places is the size of the text on a sign
43:54 and there's a lot of safety reasons why
43:56 you would want a
43:58 font and text to be of a certain size or
44:01 less than a certain size depending on
44:03 what audience whether it's bars or
44:05 pedestrians
44:06 it's going for but you still wouldn't
44:08 need to read it you would just need to
44:09 look at the quality of the sign to
44:11 understand
44:12 whether certain regulations apply
44:15 so joan just to add on
44:18 daniel's explanation i think
44:22 you know where the concern comes from is
44:25 if you have a political sign uh
44:28 joanne smith is running for dog catcher
44:31 and you have a um
44:35 barney's re-roofing company
44:38 which is a commercial sign and then you
44:41 have
44:42 an open house for a real estate sign
44:45 and if each of those have different
44:47 regulations
44:48 because they're different types of signs
44:50 political real estate commercial
44:54 that's where you have to read the sign
44:57 to know which kind of regulations apply
44:59 and that's what we're not allowed to do
45:02 anymore
45:04 does that make more sense
45:07 kinda i know it's gonna be
45:10 very difficult to to um
45:14 put this all together i've been uh
45:18 looking through this for the last couple
45:20 years uh with the realtors because they
45:22 started
45:22 a long time ago and i know that every
45:25 city has been working on this and having
45:27 problems coming up with a valid
45:30 consistent series of
45:34 you know or an ordinance to accommodate
45:38 accommodate all this and i think it's
45:40 going to be very difficult to
45:42 get everything put together
45:46 do you know of any other city that's
45:47 actually gone ahead and approved
45:50 it and is it something that
45:53 would fit into issaquah
45:58 lucy so i'm gonna actually
46:01 daniel is the sign guru from um ogden
46:04 murphy wallace he's probably too shy to
46:07 say that
46:08 um and so i'm gonna let him answer
46:11 because
46:11 i know of several communities but he'll
46:14 have a more comprehensive understanding
46:16 of which cities have adopted regulations
46:20 yeah so other cities have um
46:23 and they've their
46:26 cities have taken a lot of different
46:27 paths with this some cities
46:30 did a very very light touch and just
46:33 tried to edit their way
46:34 out of the situation those were
46:38 a number of the cities early on there
46:40 are some cities that
46:42 took the super heavy touch and just
46:44 basically everything
46:45 out or apart um and then there are some
46:48 cities even that
46:49 went um in a totally different direction
46:51 and tried to create
46:53 locations for temporary signs and create
46:56 kind of zones and say
46:58 everything goes here or there um
47:02 there's there's merit to all of those
47:03 different ways to do it
47:05 i think the the benefit of what
47:08 isaqua is doing is issaquah identified
47:12 a need to do some other stuff at the
47:14 same time um
47:15 nothing hugely overhauling but trying to
47:19 consolidate
47:20 and so the opportunity is available to
47:22 to spend the time
47:24 a little bit of time on it and so what
47:27 what will be put forward is a
47:30 what i would view from from from a
47:32 temporary
47:33 signed perspective as more of a
47:36 comprehensive look at it and to make
47:38 sure that it works
47:39 for for the city as opposed to trying
47:42 desperately to stick to what you have
47:44 and then just edit out
47:45 and um if you'd like i can i can pull up
47:48 on the screen
47:49 an example from your code of some of the
47:51 sections that we're talking about that
47:53 are problematic
47:54 and just how hard it is to to work with
47:57 current structure
47:57 and needing to move away from that but
48:00 um yeah
48:01 a lot many have done it and many cities
48:04 have done it in different ways
48:06 so daniel i think joan was also
48:09 interested because she said she'd been
48:11 looking at this
48:12 maybe some examples of other communities
48:16 who um i don't know if anyone's taken
48:19 the approach that we have
48:21 that you could identify or
48:24 um i don't think the editing our way out
48:26 of the paper bag is probably a good
48:29 technique and we
48:32 are going you know as a community we
48:35 tend to
48:36 care a lot about um our aesthetics
48:39 and therefore want to regulate things
48:42 so i don't know if you have excuse me
48:46 some example communities um in the puget
48:49 sound greater puget sound area that you
48:51 might
48:52 um identify for people who
48:56 want to just go look at some sign codes
48:58 that have been adopted
49:00 yeah i mean absolutely i i can follow up
49:02 with um
49:03 some more specifics but city of olympia
49:06 is one that i actually worked with them
49:07 on and they spent
49:08 a long time they they had a very
49:11 involved and detailed community outreach
49:14 process
49:15 um so i think that they have a code that
49:17 i think that they're
49:19 they were pleased with when it was
49:20 adopted um one that is
49:22 different than that is geek harbor
49:25 i think
49:28 i think it was carnation did one kind of
49:31 early on it was pretty
49:32 um comprehensive but but i can follow up
49:35 with more
49:36 more examples and provide links to those
49:37 as well before we get into really
49:40 looking at the
49:41 issaquah changes or where they want to
49:45 it would be nice to be able to have some
49:48 background with some
49:49 other ideas from other cities
49:52 to see if we can you know incorporate
49:54 them if we
49:56 don't like them like them or something
50:00 i do have a question from commissioner
50:02 lewis
50:05 thank you madam chair commissioner joy
50:07 lewis here joan has a perfect segue into
50:09 my questions actually
50:11 um so in my research so after i read the
50:15 concurrent opinions i think it was
50:16 justice toledo and justice kagan i was
50:18 like
50:19 ready to dive in right but our pack is
50:21 like wait wait you know
50:22 it's still coming so then i you know was
50:25 kind of chopping at the bit so
50:26 i um i i really love a lot of the things
50:30 that olympia does the structure that
50:31 they do so i liked
50:33 looking at them um a carnation was
50:34 another one because they're great
50:35 because they were early on right we're
50:36 kind of behind so we kind of get to use
50:38 these models of other communities that
50:39 have done it
50:40 i think lacy might have been one that i
50:42 found too that i actually really liked
50:45 so i recommended i recommend that one on
50:48 a separate note kind of going off of
50:49 that i couldn't find anything for our
50:51 sister cities as far as like bellevue
50:53 and is
50:53 and samanish goes um not to say that
50:55 they don't haven't done it but i was
50:57 curious if there was some sort of intent
50:59 as far as kind of a
51:00 an idea of um of multiple
51:04 you know having a kind of having a flow
51:06 as far as these multiple communities as
51:07 far as like a tone or things or if it
51:09 was just kind of more of a bubble
51:11 if but i hadn't seen anything again from
51:12 our sister communities
51:15 i actually don't think i know off the
51:18 top of my head
51:19 um either bellevue
51:23 or sammamish i'm just trying to think um
51:26 i did work with wenatchee on their sign
51:28 code again
51:30 um uh i think they would readily admit
51:33 this
51:34 they have some challenges with signs if
51:36 you've ever driven down some of the the
51:37 main drags in wenatchee they've got a
51:39 lot of
51:40 billboards and bigs pull signs and
51:42 whatever so it's very uh
51:43 important to them um a pretty detailed
51:46 process there
51:47 um but but you know
51:50 some of the larger communities you know
51:52 like in bellevue and stuff
51:53 it's a little bit slower to get to it um
51:58 so yeah i i can't speak to those though
52:00 okay good that's what i just that was
52:01 what i had kind of figured out since um
52:03 since um i kind of went in that
52:04 direction um speaking
52:06 very vaguely how big is this lift
52:10 for issaquah like how much does our code
52:12 need our current sign code need to be
52:13 amended right like
52:15 i like you know lucy's comment saying
52:17 we're not trying to edit our way out of
52:18 a damn paper bag kind of a concept so
52:21 i like that i like that we're digging
52:22 our teeth and i'm kind of curious like
52:24 how would you characterize the lift we
52:26 have in front of us
52:30 uh that uh that's an interesting
52:32 question i've never
52:33 received a question quite like that um
52:36 well i i would say that when it comes to
52:38 your temporary sign
52:39 section um the lift is larger because
52:42 you have um a different structure i mean
52:45 just
52:46 how it was crafted before that doesn't
52:49 withstand scrutiny so it needs to look
52:51 different
52:51 and so that lift is larger for the
52:54 remaining portions of the code
52:56 some of the more administrative type
52:58 sections of the code and then the
53:00 permanent commercial type signs that
53:03 lift is
53:05 smaller because we don't have to
53:06 recreate anything
53:08 but probably not the smallest just
53:10 simply because we have
53:12 four or so different codes that we're
53:14 trying to pull together and so it's just
53:15 a lot of data
53:16 to be working with um but i i don't
53:19 think it's anything
53:20 overly large in that situation so in
53:22 terms of
53:23 what you'll be working with i think that
53:26 you could view it as um
53:28 you know there's established city uh
53:30 policy
53:31 and kind of uh direct some directive
53:34 uh behind a huge portion of what you'll
53:36 see um so i don't think you'll need to
53:38 think about like
53:39 oh should we have marquis signs that
53:42 look like this i think there's pretty
53:44 established
53:44 you know precedent that that would
53:46 happen but it will be before you and
53:48 you'll be able to
53:49 dive as deep as you want but then that
53:52 temporary science
53:53 the science section will be one that
53:55 you'll spend
53:56 uh more time thinking about the deeper
53:59 details
54:02 yeah i just add on to that for a sec one
54:05 i would say we didn't want to create a
54:06 lot of non-conforming signs
54:08 so we will um be
54:12 as we're trying to get to the single
54:14 side co sign
54:15 code trying to make sure that um
54:19 if we're making a change it's
54:21 intentional and we're aware
54:23 where we might have non-conformities and
54:26 the second thing i just wanted to
54:28 offer was um i i know the planning
54:31 directors at bellevue and smamish and
54:33 i'm happy to reach out
54:34 and find out from them what they've done
54:36 it's a good question
54:38 um i appreciate that that idea of
54:40 streamlining um i'm curious
54:42 you know so that basically you know
54:43 we're touching this effectively once or
54:45 you know
54:46 ish you know um have we encountered any
54:49 pushback in the last five years
54:50 as we've had this outdated sign code
54:52 have we faced any kind of
54:55 issues with citations anything um as
54:58 we've encountered members of our
54:59 community because of being out to date
55:02 not that i'm aware of i will add though
55:06 that um the longer the further away
55:09 from the supreme court decision
55:13 we are uh the more we have
55:16 uh lightened our touch on certain kinds
55:19 of code enforcement to ensure that we
55:22 are not crossing that line
55:24 so i know that there are signs that have
55:29 temporary um signs that are not
55:33 commercial or
55:34 fall into the non-commercial category
55:37 that violate the code and we have not
55:39 touched them
55:40 because we um feel that
55:43 under a code that was compliant with the
55:46 supreme court they would have been
55:48 allowed
55:49 and therefore we're just
55:53 remaining silent thank you guys
55:56 is there a time limit to when you have
56:00 be in conformance
56:05 uh no um
56:09 no i mean you can be
56:13 um what we don't want um
56:17 you know we're we're moving towards it
56:19 the city's taking steps and has for
56:21 for uh quite some time to deal with this
56:23 so i think
56:24 all the right things have been done um
56:26 what we don't want is somebody to
56:28 you know choose to challenge it as
56:32 applied or on its face and and
56:34 we won't we won't get into that but um i
56:37 i think that um
56:38 we're looking to get this done in the
56:40 first part of the year and
56:42 um i think that there's um great support
56:45 uh in the administration to get it done
56:47 and and we'll we'll have a compliance
56:49 sign code in q1
56:51 2021 well and to add on to what daniel's
56:55 saying which i think is important
56:57 is um you know those signs that we're
57:01 leaving in place
57:03 um they they for because they're we
57:06 would have to
57:07 uh apply the current code using content
57:11 it means that we don't have the tools to
57:15 locate where they're located how long
57:17 they're there
57:18 and what they're made of the three
57:20 things that we do get to regulate and so
57:22 we want the tools that allow us to
57:25 implement
57:26 the community's expectations as life by
57:28 law
57:31 that's a good path to follow i was
57:34 normally
57:35 sometimes when the supreme court or the
57:38 state
57:38 comes down they mandate that it it has
57:41 to be done by a certain date so
57:43 obviously that's that's not what it's
57:45 happening now
57:47 one of the areas that started out
57:51 in the beginning of this was newcastle
57:54 and their original idea was to have the
57:59 zones that you could put signs in which
58:02 for as many signs as you wanted as long
58:05 as they were in
58:06 that specific zone and that would have
58:09 meant
58:10 that typically realtors could put in
58:14 10 or 15 signs in the same
58:17 area so um hopefully
58:20 they've gone a little bit further and
58:22 not even the realtors were against that
58:24 one
58:25 i have a question from
58:30 commissioner fall thank you madame
58:35 so mr kennedy i'm
58:39 i'm thinking back to a time here in
58:42 ezekwa
58:42 when there was a an apartment complex a
58:45 specific apartment complex
58:47 that had eight or nine different
58:50 signs advertising their apartment um
58:53 complex
58:54 along newport um
58:57 can the city prevent
59:02 or restrict signage
59:05 in certain areas and the number of signs
59:08 to a specific within a certain distance
59:12 so that we don't end up with a
59:16 a corner or a street
59:19 that's junky with signs
59:23 so so i think the answer to that is yes
59:25 and we've tried to come up with ways to
59:27 do that
59:28 that are fair and even uh for
59:32 for everybody that wants to use the sign
59:33 code
59:36 one of the things that we've tried to do
59:37 is well two of the things
59:39 we tried to uh include uh setback
59:42 requirements from
59:43 key features like from sidewalks from
59:46 the road
59:46 from driveways from access points and
59:49 front doors
59:50 things like that to try to make sure
59:52 that you still have
59:53 usability of those areas and then we've
59:55 also included right now which is open
59:58 for discussion and for further analysis
1:00:01 but having a setback between
1:00:03 um temporary signs of five feet and so
1:00:06 that you don't what
1:00:07 what we don't want to have happen which
1:00:09 is what you've identified
1:00:11 is the creation of walls of temporary
1:00:13 signs because they're stacked up next to
1:00:15 each other
1:00:15 and you get you know five feet 20 feet
1:00:18 whatever it may be
1:00:19 of just straight signage and that can be
1:00:21 dangerous for pedestrians and cars
1:00:24 and so by requiring a setback we're not
1:00:27 saying you know
1:00:28 between your signs or or any
1:00:31 qualification it's just they need to be
1:00:33 set apart
1:00:34 uh for safety in the community and so
1:00:36 things like that
1:00:38 um i think would have the incidental uh
1:00:41 effect of also helping maintain the
1:00:44 aesthetics of some of these communities
1:00:46 um for corners and whatnot we have we do
1:00:49 have the ability to prohibit signs in
1:00:52 locations medians divided roads
1:00:56 things like that but the and again i'm
1:01:00 not going to dive too deep into the
1:01:01 legal stuff here because
1:01:02 uh it's that we're at too high level at
1:01:05 this moment but
1:01:06 um banning signs
1:01:09 from some locations would be infringed
1:01:13 upon what's called a traditional public
1:01:15 forum
1:01:16 and we can't take away some somebody's
1:01:19 right to express their free speech
1:01:21 in some locations um again
1:01:24 it's not everywhere in the middle of a
1:01:26 median or a roundabout or something like
1:01:28 that that there's safety reasons and it
1:01:30 was never opened up as a public forum
1:01:32 etc etc so we won't get into that but
1:01:34 there's
1:01:35 some limited opportunity to to prohibit
1:01:38 some signs
1:01:39 but i don't want that to be viewed as
1:01:42 kind of a tool
1:01:43 for this group because we won't be going
1:01:45 through and saying well we just don't
1:01:46 want signs on all corners or something
1:01:48 like that
1:01:49 um so we'll we'll find ways to address
1:01:52 the concerns related to
1:01:55 the aesthetics and the safety and you
1:01:57 know the clutter that we can
1:01:59 we can do to get to in other ways okay
1:02:02 thank you very much you answered my
1:02:03 question
1:02:04 so i've been reminded by senior planner
1:02:07 lisa and that we should
1:02:09 introduce ourselves every time we speak
1:02:12 starting with me i'm joan probola
1:02:17 is there anybody else who has a question
1:02:22 concerned comment
1:02:25 i believe this is this is lucy sloman
1:02:28 uh land development manager jason voice
1:02:31 uh indicated he had another comment
1:02:38 thank you thank you commissioner voice
1:02:40 here so i just want to make a quick
1:02:42 comment since we're just kind of talking
1:02:44 about this
1:02:45 you had mentioned earlier kind of about
1:02:46 a light hand a heavy hand
1:02:48 and then also like the zoning where you
1:02:50 just put a bunch of signs so for what
1:02:52 it's worth i think the zoning one i
1:02:54 i would love to see pictures of that
1:02:56 because i'm sure it just looks awful
1:02:59 you know i'm thinking of like a you know
1:03:01 neighborhood again i keep thinking of
1:03:02 the boat and spool
1:03:04 here and uh right next to where i live
1:03:07 and i couldn't even imagine if that was
1:03:09 you know that whole front yard just
1:03:11 covered in signs so many signs that
1:03:13 there's 30 real estate people trying to
1:03:15 show an open house and they're all in
1:03:17 the same spot
1:03:18 so i would think zoning would probably
1:03:19 be the worst
1:03:21 option and i i don't know like i said
1:03:24 for what it's worth zoning that one
1:03:25 seems to be the scariest one
1:03:27 and then i can understand also like
1:03:29 using the right of way and keeping them
1:03:31 away for sidewalks because we all know
1:03:33 that sometimes people take them out and
1:03:35 throw them
1:03:36 so i don't know all those things kind of
1:03:38 come into play when we're talking about
1:03:40 what it is we want to see from our sign
1:03:41 code i'm not sure how far you guys have
1:03:43 into the work mr kenny and your your
1:03:46 colleagues but
1:03:47 i don't know zoning i'd love to see some
1:03:49 pictures of it because i'm i'm pretty
1:03:50 sure that probably looks terrifying
1:03:53 for what it's worth so uh this is daniel
1:03:55 kenney
1:03:56 um we're not headed down that path right
1:03:59 um of course you know um staff um
1:04:02 and and uh ppc and council may change
1:04:05 that but
1:04:06 um no we're not heading down that path
1:04:08 and we feel like we've
1:04:10 started to pull together a collection of
1:04:13 time-placed manner restrictions that are
1:04:15 taking into account the aesthetics and
1:04:17 the um the beauty of your community
1:04:20 but also the right of individuals to to
1:04:22 utilize the sign code and to
1:04:24 put signs out so we're going to try to
1:04:26 find that balance with your help
1:04:30 so this is commissioner probola
1:04:35 i would hope that since we're bringing
1:04:37 up real estate signs that if there are
1:04:39 any questions
1:04:40 and uh you need some answers that
1:04:43 uh you would be able to uh speak with
1:04:47 the realtor organization
1:04:48 to make sure that you know they're work
1:04:51 you're working together
1:04:53 i'm concerned that once this goes into
1:04:56 effect
1:04:56 there's got to be some lead time in
1:04:59 order for people to understand
1:05:01 and see the differences of what's going
1:05:04 on so you're not going to go up and
1:05:06 pick up the signs the next day you're
1:05:08 going to
1:05:09 inform the people for
1:05:12 you know a relatively short amount of
1:05:14 time on what the
1:05:16 new conditions are where we're going
1:05:17 with this i hope that's in the plan
1:05:21 so i will i don't see any more comments
1:05:24 in the in the chat room
1:05:27 do we any of you want to make any
1:05:29 additional comments
1:05:32 is there any comments from
1:05:36 deputy commissioner snyder
1:05:43 hearing none we are looking forward to a
1:05:48 oh is it out here
1:05:52 i'm sorry uh this is this is deputy city
1:05:54 administrator andrea snyder
1:05:57 um i uh just
1:06:00 wanted to make sure to say a few things
1:06:03 regarding city updates before you
1:06:04 conclude the meeting but
1:06:06 um i think uh we weren't at that point
1:06:08 yet so i just wanted to
1:06:09 make sure i said that before you may
1:06:12 uh moved to conclude the meeting thank
1:06:16 no i understand i was just wondering if
1:06:18 you had anything this is commissioner
1:06:20 probably
1:06:21 uh if you had any comments in uh
1:06:24 in regard to the sign code um
1:06:28 i know it's going to be a robust
1:06:31 discussion
1:06:32 hopefully our new commissioners will be
1:06:34 here to
1:06:35 join us there will be three new
1:06:39 commissioners coming on that i'm really
1:06:41 excited about
1:06:43 with that i'm just going to thank mr
1:06:46 kenny
1:06:46 and thank you for your time and you're
1:06:50 answering all your questions this
1:06:53 evening we really appreciate it look
1:06:54 forward to
1:06:56 uh hearing from you and lucy again
1:07:00 to uh and i hope we get more than one
1:07:02 meeting
1:07:03 because it is a complicated situation
1:07:06 and there's questions that we all
1:07:09 will definitely come up with once we see
1:07:12 the plan that the city puts together so
1:07:14 thank you mr kenny thank you for having
1:07:18 and with that i'm going to call on
1:07:20 deputy
1:07:21 administrator snyder for any comments
1:07:26 she has in regard to some of the other
1:07:28 issues that we've spoken about
1:07:34 uh thank you madam chair i'm wondering
1:07:36 if uh before we do that if we do have
1:07:39 any members of the public who wanted to
1:07:41 provide comment i don't know if they've
1:07:43 already been provided the opportunity
1:07:45 um but certainly i would yield
1:07:48 to any members of the public who had a
1:07:51 comment if that's appropriate at this
1:07:54 i was going to wait and until we
1:07:57 finished this
1:07:58 and we went through the calendar and
1:07:59 then i would open it up to audience
1:08:01 comments
1:08:02 so right now i would appreciate if you
1:08:05 would give us your updates well i know
1:08:07 if there is a anybody who would like to
1:08:10 make a comment
1:08:11 they might make a comment on what you're
1:08:14 going to update us on
1:08:17 great thank you very much madam chair
1:08:19 again this is andrea
1:08:21 snyder the deputy city administrator and
1:08:24 just a couple of
1:08:25 announcements for the commission first
1:08:28 is i wanted to
1:08:29 provide an update to you on the
1:08:31 construction hours
1:08:32 item that you considered at your last
1:08:35 commission meeting
1:08:36 so this was a discussion point as to
1:08:38 what uh constitutes
1:08:40 discussion uh construction in the city's
1:08:43 and that there was a presentation by our
1:08:46 code enforcement officer chris garbowsky
1:08:49 on this to you last time so this item is
1:08:53 going before council's consideration on
1:08:54 monday's meeting monday's regular
1:08:56 meeting at seven o'clock so if you would
1:08:58 like to
1:08:59 watch or listen in it's on regular
1:09:02 business
1:09:04 for the city council's consideration
1:09:06 we've certainly included in the council
1:09:08 materials
1:09:10 uh your discussion the summary of your
1:09:12 discussion
1:09:13 and also um your recommendations
1:09:17 so that is going before council on
1:09:20 monday and i'm happy to
1:09:22 circle back with you at our next meeting
1:09:24 or beforehand
1:09:25 um pending council's discussion to let
1:09:28 you know how that went
1:09:29 at city council in case you don't have
1:09:31 the opportunity to
1:09:32 watch on monday the other announcement
1:09:36 that i
1:09:36 wanted to make is that director
1:09:39 community planning and development
1:09:41 director keith niven
1:09:43 i don't think that this announcement has
1:09:45 been made to you yet he
1:09:46 is leaving the city his last day
1:09:50 is actually tomorrow which is one of the
1:09:52 reasons why he's not with us
1:09:54 this evening so he's had served the
1:09:58 city for a long time 22 years
1:10:01 and we certainly thank him for his
1:10:03 service
1:10:05 and while keith is after keith leaves
1:10:09 and before we're able to fill the
1:10:11 position
1:10:12 i'll be serving as the interim community
1:10:15 planning
1:10:16 community planning and development
1:10:17 director in addition to my regular
1:10:20 duties
1:10:20 so um but we are hoping to recruit
1:10:24 uh for this position and move quickly on
1:10:27 filling the
1:10:28 this very crucial role for the city but
1:10:31 i wanted to make sure that you all knew
1:10:32 that tomorrow is keith's last day
1:10:35 those are all of my announcements and
1:10:37 updates madam chair thank you so much
1:10:39 for the opportunity to speak
1:10:44 you are taking on a huge responsibility
1:10:47 i don't know how you have time to
1:10:48 accomplish
1:10:49 all that um is on your plate
1:10:52 i do have a comment for from senior
1:10:55 planner
1:10:56 lisa hi this is kristen leason senior
1:11:00 planner i do have
1:11:01 andrea gott deputy city administrator uh
1:11:04 i got
1:11:05 some of mine but i wanted to add on that
1:11:08 comprehensive plan amendments went to
1:11:09 city council for a study session on
1:11:12 tuesday night and they were
1:11:16 on you know so far on board with many of
1:11:19 them but they did have concerns as you
1:11:21 with the century centurylink slash rv
1:11:25 rezone and their same concerns that you
1:11:28 had were with
1:11:29 the displacement of the people who are
1:11:31 currently there
1:11:32 so we're going to see what we can do to
1:11:33 provide them with more information their
1:11:35 other concerns had to do with legacy
1:11:36 landscaping primarily with
1:11:39 um the environment and with
1:11:42 sort of uh density and
1:11:46 and the community benefit for that so
1:11:50 that goes back to council on december
1:11:53 for action at that time
1:11:56 our next meeting will be a public
1:11:59 hearing
1:12:00 on the old town architectural design
1:12:02 standards for single-family duplex
1:12:05 we should get our final hopefully draft
1:12:07 of that
1:12:08 next week and then we'll review it and
1:12:10 then it will be posted and it will be
1:12:11 out for review by the public and for you
1:12:15 and as commissioner probably stated we
1:12:18 interviews for our ppc members this week
1:12:21 and we
1:12:22 it was um a really really
1:12:25 impressive and large group of applicants
1:12:27 that we had
1:12:28 and it was kind of a struggle to pick um
1:12:31 but we did find three they have all
1:12:33 accepted
1:12:34 they will be appointed on december 7th
1:12:37 and then they will their start date will
1:12:39 be january 1st i didn't think that the
1:12:40 architectural standards meeting would be
1:12:42 public hearing would be the best place
1:12:44 to start so they'll be starting on the
1:12:47 and that concludes my report thank you
1:12:52 so this is uh madam chair probola
1:12:57 in regard to the interviews um there
1:13:00 were some
1:13:01 they were all very good and
1:13:04 hopefully they will stay
1:13:07 tuned and apply again for when there are
1:13:10 openings in
1:13:12 beginning january february interview
1:13:16 or at lea even to look at some of the
1:13:18 other commissions because they are
1:13:21 very well qualified individuals
1:13:25 and so at this time
1:13:29 i would like to find out
1:13:33 from doug or whoever is
1:13:37 in the hot seat if there are any
1:13:40 buddy in the audience that would like to
1:13:42 make a comment
1:13:45 has anybody signed up this is kristin
1:13:48 leeson
1:13:49 and no one has signed up however we do
1:13:51 have steve pereira in
1:13:53 the audience mr pereira would you like
1:13:55 to speak yes
1:13:58 yes please can you hear me okay yes we
1:14:02 okay so simple thoughts and i'll just
1:14:04 put them out there and i'll let
1:14:07 you answer or determine whatever's next
1:14:10 uh first thanks to keith for his service
1:14:12 to the city 22 years is a
1:14:14 long time so thanks tim thanks to andrea
1:14:18 stepping up and taking on what already
1:14:20 seems like a large plate that she has
1:14:21 filled so
1:14:23 i thought that was both worth opening
1:14:24 with uh the next stop was on the
1:14:27 gender topics
1:14:31 there seems to be some intersectionality
1:14:33 between the topics of this topic
1:14:36 which were ideological science and
1:14:39 directional science and
1:14:41 political science and commercial science
1:14:43 that like to better understand
1:14:46 how those interact where those interact
1:14:50 there are some businesses that people
1:14:51 don't really like because they maybe
1:14:54 faith-based motif how that
1:14:57 intersectionality interacts with the
1:14:59 ideological signs versus commercial
1:15:01 signs
1:15:02 or maybe some people like the scouting
1:15:03 organization because of the same reason
1:15:05 or how that would intersect with let's
1:15:08 say a
1:15:10 church or temple or mosque construction
1:15:13 with an ideological sign how that plays
1:15:16 and interacts
1:15:19 that was my first thought the second
1:15:20 thought was
1:15:22 um i think the
1:15:26 the city city attorney doing the
1:15:28 presentation talked about different
1:15:29 cities have taken these different
1:15:31 approaches on how wide of a approach
1:15:34 that they're taking i'd like to better
1:15:35 understand maybe why or what
1:15:38 are the benefits or the downfalls or
1:15:40 downsides of each of those different
1:15:41 approaches whether it's a fine lens or
1:15:43 narrow lens or a medium lens and
1:15:46 the third thought and just to comment
1:15:48 was that
1:15:50 i would have liked to see the
1:15:51 presentation on clarity and what gets
1:15:52 sent out
1:15:54 it's a fascinating topic and i would
1:15:56 have liked to better understand that if
1:15:57 somebody could forward that to me please
1:15:58 but just going forward
1:16:00 uh if that can be included in the agenda
1:16:03 for future presentations just to help
1:16:05 those of us better understand what's
1:16:07 coming down the pike
1:16:09 thank you all for your good work and
1:16:11 happy thanksgiving
1:16:14 is there anybody else out there
1:16:17 hidden somewhere that would like to
1:16:19 speak
1:16:22 there is no one else out there there are
1:16:24 three jones
1:16:26 on my screen um you know one is on on my
1:16:29 phone
1:16:30 the other one is i got into
1:16:33 but my camera doesn't work so um
1:16:37 you get more of me what can i say um
1:16:40 i do want to make one last comment since
1:16:43 we were talking about
1:16:44 interviews i think the interviews with
1:16:48 interviews but the applications for the
1:16:50 environmental council
1:16:51 is still open so if anybody
1:16:54 is still interested at least that's what
1:16:57 i heard
1:16:59 or saw lucy are you checking that
1:17:09 i i'm sorry say that say that again joan
1:17:11 i was making a note based on something
1:17:13 else she said
1:17:14 and i uh stopped listening
1:17:18 how could you do that
1:17:21 if anybody is still interested in
1:17:23 applying for the environmental council
1:17:27 i think it's still open for a few days
1:17:30 but if you are interested
1:17:31 uh the application would be online so
1:17:34 please do
1:17:35 check to see if it is still
1:17:38 open um i believe you're right
1:17:41 um madam chair i uh saw
1:17:44 there are two boards that are open right
1:17:47 now and i saw the
1:17:49 announcement within the last day or two
1:17:52 so i believe you're correct that those
1:17:53 positions
1:17:54 are uh those boards are still taking
1:17:56 applications
1:17:58 okay thank you is there any
1:18:02 comment for the common good does anybody
1:18:06 want to
1:18:07 ask me anything from staff
1:18:13 nope okay
1:18:16 hearing none i'm going to close the
1:18:19 meeting
1:18:20 at 805
1:18:23 and thank you for your service

Attendance

Council / Members (8)
Administration/Staff: Ron Faul Christen Leeson
Senior Planner Joan Probala Andrea Snyder
Deputy City Administrator Joy Lewis Lucy Sloman
Land Development Mgr. Jason Voiss Commissioners Not Present: Others Present: Janice Carle (Excused) Daniel P. Kenny
Ogden
Murphy
Bill Rinehart Wallace Robin Beukers
Alternate