All posts in the topic Council vote Monday to allow commercial type signs in residential n... (Short link)
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- There are 4 posts — by 3 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by John Kysylyczyn at May 21 02:58 UTC
John and other RIF members... John, thanks for passing the word about the Sign Ordinance. Because of a conflict, I cannot attend Monday evening's meeting, so I sent a note to the City Council about my concerns. Below, I have copied my message to the Council please forward to others who may benefit from borrowing words from my own action, or who may want to add to any speaking points if they go to the session in person. I emailed my note via this link to the webpage that sends a message to all council members plus the mayor: _http://www.ci.roseville.mn.us/forms.asp?fid=115_ (http://www.ci.roseville.mn.us/forms.asp?fid=115) (This is a handy link to have on one's desktop.) Here is what I wrote to the Council I am concerned that the proposed change to Sign Regulations, (item d. on the Consent Agenda) will result in an increase in ugly commercialization in Roseville residential areas. A simple question: why is the proposed change better for the residents of Roseville than the law that is in place today? The proposed change has no safeguards written into it. Roseville citizens should know that our rights and values are protected by the laws -- not just that we need to depend on the "best intentions" of our elected Council to prevent bad things from happening after the passage of bad laws. I almost suspect I need to ask: what's the real reason behind this? Is there some desire to be able to make money by renting light pole space to big companies for signs? There are light poles up and down my street -- Merrill south of Roselawn -- so will I and my kids be strolling along with our neighbors this summer and be forced to look at garish, glaring advertisements for your business buddies because you wanted to make a buck rather than keep the street one that we can be proud of? The bottom line is, why is this change better for the residents of the city than what is in place today? What is the benefit? That has NOT been communicated. I urge you to reconsider this proposed amendment, at least to the point where you can demonstrate WHY you, as our Council, believe this change is in our best interest. I must travel out of state on business Monday evening, or I would come to the meeting and ask this in person - I will be looking at what happened, and will continue to ask after the vote if approved without you being able to articulate why this is a good thing. Please feel free to pass this on to anyone in the universe. Thank you. Mike Boguszewski Re.: d. Enact an Ordinance Amending Chapter 1009, Sign Regulations, pertaining to signs which are affixed to City owned light poles (PROJ0013) Mike Boguszewski, Chair Republican HD 54A 1840 Merrill Street Roseville, MN 55113 612/963-2431 <email obscured> In a message dated 5/18/2008 12:18:16 A.M. Central Daylight Time, <email obscured> writes: This coming Monday, the Roseville City Council will attempt to change a city ordinance or law to allow the placement of commercial type signs in residential neighborhoods for the first time in many years if not the first time ever. Last week when the council discussed this issue, Mr. Klausing and city manager Malinen gave indicators that they planned on pushing this through this coming Monday without much discussion. When they were questioned as to why this law needed to include residential neighborhoods, instead of just restricting it to commercial and business areas, they essentially dismissed the question. They fully support this new proposal to allow commercial type signs in residential neighborhoods. The agenda packet for this coming Monday calls for this. Specifically what the council wants to do is change current law to allow themselves the new ability to vote to allow "Signs which are affixed to city-owned light poles, standards, and/or objects which contain information advertising the City itself or City events, provided the signs have been approved by the City Council and the City Public Works Director or the Director's designee." So some of you may be wondering what is driving this craziness. Well the Roseville Visitors Association wants to put up some signs at their own expense on some city light poles by Rosedale and I believe along Larpenteur Avenue. Sounds simple and non controversial except banners of this type have been illegal for many years. So an ordinance or law change is needed to allow this. Well instead of passing a law that is very specific in nature, that is restricted to city light poles in commercial industrial areas, that specifically addresses the request before them form the Roseville Visitors Association, the city council and staff went crazy and are proposing a change that goes 10 times beyond what is needed. The proposal they want to pass is so far reaching, that when questioned last week, none of the council members or staff were even able to answer the simplest questions as to what this proposal even includes. They had no idea if their proposal would allow 5 signs, 500 signs, or 5,000 new signs throughout the city. Now staff will try to claim this coming Monday that the city only owns light poles in a few select commercial areas so this law would not apply to residential areas. Not exactly a truthful statement when reviewing city records. If you read the proposal in the council packet available on the city's website, you will see that staff is sort of sanding off the truth so to speak. First, the city appears to only own light poles in commercial areas. But the city fails to mention that they can install a light pole in any residential neighborhood at any time, without the permission of any resident who may live by it. Second, the proposal says more than just city light poles. The law also includes "standards, and/or objects". The city staff to date has not produced any list of what this even means, and where these so called "standards, and/or objects" are located. From the comments made by staff, even they have no idea what this means. All I know for a fact is that the city owns a lot of property in residential neighborhoods (mainly parks) and controls a lot of road right-of-way, and this language would allow commercial type banners to be hung from any "object" on these properties. Now staff and council members will claim that the law requires them to approve these commercial type banners before they are put up and rest assured that they won't allow them in residential neighborhoods. Well again this is sort of sanding off the truth so to speak. First, nothing in the law requires the council to notify citizens that a banner placement request is before the city council. Second, if this law passes, the council at any time could vote to allow these commercial type banners to be placed in residential neighborhoods next month, next year, or the next decade. Currently by law, these type of banners are illegal and cannot be placed anywhere regardless of the opinion of the current or any future city council. Here is the common sense kicker for you. The council was asked a very simple question this past Monday. The question was, if you say that you would never approve these commercial type banners in residential neighborhoods, then why wouldn't you just pass a law that only allows them in business and industrial areas only, and continue to leave them illegal in residential neighborhoods? The council simply gave dumb looks and stares and ignored the question. No council member or staff member wanted to answer the question. Roseville citizens wake up and contact your elected officials. There is absolutely no reason we need to change a law to allow more signage in residential neighborhoods. The Roseville Visitors Association has no interest in putting up signage in residential neighborhoods. I doubt most homeowners want to stare out their window at more visual clutter. Mr. Klausing and city manager Malinen plan on ramming this through on Monday if people don't speak up. If you cannot contact these people this weekend, better yet show up at the Monday council meeting at 6pm and let them know what you think at public comment up front at the beginning of the meeting. This item is on the agenda for this coming Monday, May 19, 2008 under agenda item 7d, Consideration of an Amendment to Chapter 1009, Sign Regulations pertaining to signs which are affixed to City owned light poles.
Let me clear up some fuzzy information about what is proposed:
This is NOT an ordinance to put commercial signs in residential areas.
It IS an ordinance to allow, IF EACH INDIVIDUAL CASE IS APPROVED BY THE CITY
COUNCIL, signs to be located on CITY-OWNED light poles, standards (another word
for light poles), and "other objects" (if that language stays in).
The signs that would be allowed CANNOT promote any private business. The
ordinance specifies that they must be ONLY signs that promote the city itself
or city events.
Currently, the city does not, according to a map in our packet tonight, own any
light poles/standards along strictly residential streets. They are primarily
around Rosedale, and along Larpenteur near Lexington.
The OVERWHELMING majority of light poles in the city (nearly all) are owned by
other entities, such as Ramsey County or Xcel energy. The present sign
ordinance DOES NOT currently allow signs on those light poles/standards, and
the proposed change to the ordinance DOES NOT change that.
The controversy about this proposed ordinance change seems to me to be the
making of a mountain out of a molehill.
Dan, let's be even more clear about this.
As I said, this IS an ordinance to put up commercial TYPE signs in residential
areas.
We are not talking about garage sale signs that are 1 foot by 1 foot. We are
talking about commercial TYPE signs that could easily be 2 feet wide or larger
by 10 feet long or larger. These signs could easily be much larger than the
campaign signs you see every election season. There is absolutely no
restriction on the size of the sign that can be hung under this proposed change
of the law.
Yes, the ordinance allows the city council to approve these signs on a case by
case basis. MY POINT is that I see NO REASON the citizens of this community
should support the city council having this authority to post commercial type
signs in residential areas for any reason whatsoever.
Let me be crystal clear on this. There has been NO public policy reason
brought forward by anyone to support this kind of signage in residential
neighborhoods.
I beg to differ concerning your analysis of the type of signage that can be
placed. There is absolutely NO language in this proposal to prohibit the
promotion of any private business. All the ordinance says is that the signs
promote the city itself or city events. And guess what the law says concerning
who makes this determination? Yup you guessed right, the city council makes
this determination
There are dozens of situations where the city has a relationship with a private
business which would easily pass this test. I could easily imagine a massive
sign with the Target logo and their dog pictured next to a Roseville police
officer and their K-9 dog, along with the statement about Target donating money
for a police dog. This passes the test.
Another scenario is the sponsorship of fireworks by the Star Tribune in the
past. Well that certainly is a city event and can have the huge Star Tribune
logo all over the massive sign. This passes the test also, and again, if
anyone questions this, the council is the one who decides what ordinances mean.
The point is that this proposal IN NO WAY PROHIBITS the promotion of any
private business like is being claimed. This is simply not true. I will
attach the language at the bottom of this email to prove this.
Yes it is true that the majority of the light poles in the city are owned by
other entities. But the law you are proposing goes WELL BEYOND light poles.
It includes "standards" and "other objects" which pretty much means any object
that stands upright, even including the side of a park shelter or the backstop
fence of a baseball diamond.
The council has made this a mountain out of a molehill kind of issue because
they decided to use a sledgehammer to kill an ant.
The Roseville Visitors Association wanted to hang some banners from light poles
by Rosedale and the city council responds by changing the law to allow banners
of any size to be hung from anything the city owns, light pole or not, on every
block of the city, including residential neighborhoods.
Again, what every council member seems to be trying to avoid is a simple
question.
What is the public policy justification to allow this kind of signage in
residential neighborhoods?
Why are our elected officials trying to dodge the question?
Proposed language to be added to city law:
"Signs which are affixed to City-owned light poles, standards, and/or objects
which contain information advertising the City itself or City events, provided
the
signs have been approved by the City Council and City Public Works Director or
the Director’s designee."
John M. Kysylyczyn
K Solutions LLC, owner
3083 Victoria Street
Roseville, MN 55113
email: <email obscured>
home office: (651) 484-1384
www.ksolutionsllc.com
Mayor of Roseville, MN 2000-2004
Well it appears that several citizens spoke to council members on this issue
before the vote was taken tonight. In response, major changes were made to the
proposal.
In a 3-1 vote, with Klausing voting NO, the rest of the council passed the law
allowing banners, but only on streetlights and not "other objects", and
prohibited their placement in residential areas of the city. Thank you for
sticking up for residents.
Klausing voted NO, claiming that he thought in the future that if the city put
streetlights in residential neighborhoods, his vision is for citizens to have
banners hanging on their streetlights that had some message on them that was
specifically geared to their neighborhood.
Frankly, this is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of. I certainly
wouldn't want money diverted from anything else to make this happen. But on
the other hand, if we had banners hanging from streetlights in residential
neighborhoods, I might be tempted to suggest the following slogans.
"Yup, the pathway below this banner is used by 4 people a day and only cost
taxpayers $3,000,000."
"This brown monument post on Dale Street south of B which is obstructing your
vision when trying to turn onto a busy street, was approved by city staff."
"Yes our parks system has $5,000,000 in backlogged repairs, but we still had
the money to pay for our city manager's Rotary Club dues for several years."
"Did you know that our city manager got a 3% raise his second day on the job?"
To close, I talked to the director of the Roseville Visitors Association after
the council vote. She is the one who requested this law change. She had no
problem with what was passed in the end because this is all she asked for.
John M. Kysylyczyn
K Solutions LLC, owner
3083 Victoria Street
Roseville, MN 55113
email: <email obscured>
home office: (651) 484-1384
www.ksolutionsllc.com
Mayor of Roseville, MN 2000-2004