Proposed Sign Ordinance Starting From Scratch, Sent Back To Committee
By: Gina Benitez
Updated: March 17, 2012
It's a proposal that's been debated in the city for the past several months. After being a hot topic of debate, a concrete decision has finally been made.
The process of approving or dissaproving of the proposed sign ordinance to improve the city's aesthetics has just taken a step forward or maybe a step back, depending on how you look at it.
"We are going back to the drafting board," says Tim McClarty, the Chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission.
The hot topic that has had many business owners fired up about is finally coming to an end; sort of.
"Since there was so much confusion, and so much back and forth controversy on it, that we should send it back to committee so they can look at it again, since it was six years since they looked at it," says McClarty.
A committee that will be made up of both citizens interested in the aesthetics of the city and those interested in keeping their signs.
McClarty says, "What we were doing as a Planning Commission was committee work because we were spending four or five hours every meeting, two meetings a month, just talking about signs."
A topic they say is not their only focus and not their main job.
"I would differ on that a little bit. I think that's the reason for the open meetings is for people to come up and say what they think."Bruce Kreitler, the President of the Abilene Association For Independent Business Owners, has been passionate about the issue from the start."
"I think that the reason that the sign issue was taking so much time is that they were trying to be very draconian. And the public let them know about that," says Kreitler.
