Council tables sign ordinance discussion
Discussion on amending business signs laws on Fort Myers Beach will have to wait.
The Fort Myers Beach Town Council decided to table any talk about making any changes to its yet-to-be-enforced sign ordinance when it unanimously agreed to push ordinance introductions until after the Local Planning Agency holds a public hearing and reviews the proposed changes to the document.
Council will review the LPA findings and discuss the issue at a workshop on Dec. 5, at 9 a.m. The Town officials will then hold a public hearing to approve or disapprove certain “glitch” changes to the sign ordinance on Dec. 19, at 6:30 p.m.
The deadline for the upcoming sign ordinance for out-of-compliance sign holders is 14 days after that on Dec. 31.
“This has to be accomplished before the end of the year, because Dec. 31 is the deadline that you put on making sure that people who are out of regulation with their signs have that completed,” said FMB Manager Terry Stewart.
Stewart stated several so-called “glitches” were discovered after the recent major amendments to the Town sign ordinance. His staff is trying to amend the language due to changes to constitutional issues in the ordinance.
State law provides that prior to adoption of an ordinance, it must be read by title at a public meeting at least once before the date when it is adopted.
Two Council members appeared to be concerned about the proposed amendment changes involving deletions through “strike through” editing and new language through underline editing.
“I see (the proposed amendment changes) laced with several issues,” said Mayor Larry Kiker. “It’s not just wordsmithing. There are changes in some of the policy directions that we never talked about before and never voted on before.”
“I am very, very unhappy with this document,” said Vice Mayor Bob Raymond.
“This thing has been in the works for years. It has been rewritten. It was screwed up the first time. We supposedly had fixed it, but now we have another mess of stuff all over again,”
Town Attorney Marilyn Miller stated the proposed amendment changes came about when current Town staff realized there were still some areas that were not clearly written by former staff members.
“That’s how these glitches came to light,” she said.
Her explanation did not appease Kiker.
“I respectfully do not agree with your statement. We are making some big changes here,” he said. “This thing has been going on for almost a decade now.”
Last year, Council agreed to give those sign holders that were out of compliance an additional year to make the required changes to their signs.
Councilman Joe Kosinski tried to make a motion to delay implementation until Jan. 31, 2012, but withdrew the motion before it came to a vote due to the basis of having an ordinance but not enforcing it for a month.
“You’re setting precedence. You can’t have something and not enforce it while putting a blind eye to it,” said Raymond. “That is not forthright.”