Town Planner: Schools Can't Put Up McDonald's Sign

There’s won’t be a on the football field’s press box for the Thanksgiving Day game—an unpopular plan anyway for at least one Planning and Zoning Commission member—because the matter was not placed on the commission agenda for tonight’s meeting.

Town Planner Keith Brynes said the on the scoreboard but was supposed to come back to the PZC with a final plan for signage on the press box. The Board of Education approved an ad for McDonald’s last Thursday at its meeting, but it was not placed on the PZC agenda.

But that didn’t mean the matter wouldn’t be brought up Tuesday night, albeit in a round-about manner near the end of the two-hour meeting.

“It’s much more permissive than I thought,” commission member John Prue said, adding he’d like to see the new regulation revisited.

“The regulation that was adopted wasn’t anywhere near the motion I made. It’s now wide open to put signs all over the (and middle school, another member added). This is really a problem as big as this room. The money to be gained is the size of a piece of paper,” Prue said.

Stonington Public Schools asked this summer for a zoning text amendment that would allow advertising sponsor panels placed on the high school football field scoreboard to help not only offset the cost of the board, but as a way to generate revenue to help support athletic and other extracurricular programs.

After three meetings and a public hearing, what was OK’d was a more expansive zoning text amendment that permits advertising signage on both indoor and outdoor scoreboards, press boxes and fences at schools athletic fields.  The scoreboard and press box signs were to be unveiled for the Thanksgiving Day football game. The scoreboard signs are OK; the McDonald’s press box sign, not so clear.

“Well, they didn’t get the approval for that sign, so…” Brynes said. And, he added, the PZC is also awaiting a decision by the town attorney on how the commission is able to regulate a signage program though zoning.

Efforts to reach schools operations manager Bill King for comment by press time were unsuccessful. King has spearheaded the program in its application with the PZC.

“A huge problem in the town …funding athletics, but if we allow the commercialization of the high school, it will forever change the look (of the school),” Prue  said.

And while Acting Chairman Ben Tasmky, the only commission member that opposed the regulation, expressed his “concern—we all have concerns,” he cautioned that the discussion, which was not on the agenda, may not be appropriate given the regulations had already passed and there was no rule of order on whether the commission could—or should—be discussing it. The PZC approved the regulation that would allow for ads, but each time the schools wanted to place signs on scoreboards, fences or press boxes, they’d need to get an administrative site plan OK.

So what fans will see at the annual Thanksgiving Day matchup between the —a more than century old rivalry—remains to be seen.