City Council Preview - Sept 15

The City Council meeting this week has another light agenda with few items of interest to the wider audience. Perhaps the most interesting item is the discussion of the campaign sign ordinance.

As many of you know, I opposed the campaign sign ordinance years ago when it was first proposed. That ordinance allowed signs to go into the public right-of-way. Previously they were restricted to private property. The reasons to oppose expanding signs to the public right-of-way are numerous –

• · Signs have no educational value.
• · Signs litter our streets during the election and go in our landfills afterwards
• · Signs only add to the costs of campaigns, tempting candidates to take money from special interests.
• · Putting up and taking down signs use up energy that could be put to better use.
• · Monitoring the signs takes up staff time that could be better put to use.

But the #1 reason not to allow campaign signs in the public right-of-way is that it brings out the very worst in the behavior of candidates. Even before the deadline to post signs, one candidate has his signs posted up and down Bake Pkwy. That same candidate still, 9 months later, has his signs floating around town. In between, we saw signs being stolen, knocked over, and misplaced. We had arguments over signs and one candidate going around asking that businesses not use another candidate’s signs. We had an elected official threaten a business owner that he would lose money if he posted another candidate’s signs. We had a giant banner stolen from the wall of a gas station in the dead of night. And even after the season was over, the vicious infighting over signs continued in City Council sessions, and in one memorable case, became the subject of attention in a completely different subject as City Council members questioned a business owner about why he posted one person’s signs and not another person. It was embarrassing to the City and demeaning to everyone in government.

It’s time to revoke the campaign sign ordinance. It was tried and failed.

According to the staff report, a recent U.S. Supreme Court case (Reed v Gilbert) spoke to this issue and it looks to them that our ordinance is unconstitutional given the Court’s findings. That means we can either (a) scrub the ordinance or (b) revise it so that all signs are subject to the same conditions. Seems like a no brainer to me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 3 pm to 5 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a town hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be on December 12 at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.

~LK̺=~