Business leaders, city discuss new sign rules

When Stephanie Duncan of the Havelock Chamber of Commerce organized a meeting on the city’s new electronic sign regulations, she expected heated debate.

Her decision to have Judge Peter Mack moderate the discussion among business leaders, sign owners and city officials turned out to be a good one.

He set the tone early, calming Gene Bell of Gene’s Audio who vigorously questioned Scott Chase, the city’s planning director.

“Listen. Listen. We’re not going to argue,” Mack said. “Listen to me first. Listen to me. Hold on. I hate to treat this like a courtroom, but this is not an argument session. It’s a useful discussion. … Maybe if we can have some reasonable discussion we can modify the ordinance in a way that it halfway accommodates everybody.”

Mack went paragraph by paragraph through the new regulations and allowed discussion on each of the 11 provisions.

“The bottom line today is we need to come out of this meeting with recommendations that will go back to the commissioners,” said Jerry Jackson, a member of the Board of Directors of the chamber and a local businessman. “And, the commissioners are going to be the ones to decide what we take out of this or what we change in this, and they are going to be the ones that have the final say in it.

“They just asked Scott to come up with something as a benchmark to start by, so I think it’s just a little bit unfair to jump on Scott about what has happened here.”

There are 12 businesses and churches in Havelock that have spent as much as $40,000 each for electronic LCD and LED signs. Commissioners approved new regulations on the signs June 22 as a sign moratorium was set to expire. They expressed plans to revisit the new rules.

Messages on the new signs can flash, spin, zoom, burst and scroll, while including animation and graphics, all of which are prohibited under the new rules approved by commissioners on June 22.

“We spent a lot of money on these signs,” said Tripp Blair, owner of Ham’s Restaurant in Havelock. “We were permitted to have them and even encouraged to have them, and now less than a year later, I can’t even have a flashing light on it.”

Sign owner Ray Ortiz said the functions described in the new rules need to be better defined.

Mark Odell, of Lamar Advertising, which owns electronic billboards, said that the regulations should be divided into two parts, one for electronic billboards and the other for LED-LCD onsite signs.

“You guys are going to have to go back to the drawing board,” Odell said.

“They’re two different beasts,” Ortiz said.

The group discussed the brightness of the signs, which are supposed to dim during the night, as regulated in the new rules.

“If the board does not dim down in the night time, at night you’ve got a problem,” Odell said.

Most new signs have automatic dimmers, but older ones do not.

Bell said a dim sign can be distracting, too.

“If you have to look at them hard because they’re really not bright enough, then you’ve really got a problem,” he said. “This is just another example of just nailing these electronic signs to the wall.”

One Provision limits sign heights to 20 feet.

“A lot of these national tenants are going to have a problem with that,” Jackson said.

The largest objection from the business owners concerned a provision that prevents the replacement of existing billboards with electronic signs.

“We can stick in the 1950s in Havelock if you want, but LED is the future of signage,” said Eric Smith, owner of 1st Run Video.

“The days of hand-painting billboards are gone,” said Odell. “This right here would be the death knell for the billboard industry.”

The giant electronic billboards cost about $250,000 and are highly dependent on advertising. Only the most premier, highly visible locations can afford to erect them.

“You are not going to be over run with digital billboards in Havelock. No disrespect,” Odell said. “If we have a ratty looking billboard in the city and we want to fix it up, we can’t do it because of this.”

Jackson pointed out that having a billboard on a piece of property increases the value of that parcel by thousands of dollars.

Another provision restricts the advertising uses of signs.

“This conflicts with the First Amendment - freedom of speech,” Odell said.

“What we advertise and what we sell shouldn’t make a difference,” Ortiz said.

Chase passed out a questionnaire soliciting comments on specific aspects of the new rules. Commissioners plan to review the comments at an Aug. 10 workshop.

A video created by Ortiz that shows the various functions of the electronic signs will be shown at the time of the workshop.  

“You’ve really got a great opportunity to change things,” Havelock city manager Jim Freeman told the group. “Make it constructive. This board is open to it.”