Chestertown Councilman James Gatto took note at Tuesday’s council meeting that a controversial sign ordinance introduced on Aug. 19 was not on the agenda.
Chestertown Mayor Margo Bailey responded that the town will first conduct some outreach to address the concerns raised at the previous meeting. She said Zoning Administrator Kees de Mooy would be meeting with various organizations to determine their individual needs.
Town Manager Bill Ingersoll discussed how the sign ordinance has evolved over the years.
“Changes were made, and it’s time to make changes again,” Ingersoll said.
Below is a video of the discussion among the council members on Tuesday. The video is eight minutes long.
Stephan Sonn says
Repressive changes in sign law is not progress.
Mike Hunt says
We have lived with the town being controlled by Margo Bailey, Bill Ingersoll, and Mabel Mumford for decades. The town is moving from stagnation to collapse. By the way, we do have an electric sign in the historic district–it’s a broken down piece of junk on Cross St. paid for by the public. No business trying to revitalize Chestertown would allow that to happen.
Peter Newlin says
To their credit, those speaking in the video are scrupulously polite. So, it would be easy to miss the struggle going on. They are arguing over how is Chestertown going to deal with all of the controversy brought forth by the Planning Commission’s attempt to prohibit the entire category of electronic signs, and not only for the Historic District, but everywhere in town.
The Mayor wants to send the Zoning Administrator out to speak in private with the representatives he selects of the constituencies he deems should be heard. He is to decide what he should report back to the Mayor. He will probably send her a draft report after conferring with the Town Manager.
As an employee of the the Mayor (and Council), overseen by the Town Manager, it really isn’t the Zoning Administrator’s independent report. As noted, it will certainly be vetted by the Mayor and her Manager, and probably also by the Planning Chair, as the proposed categorical prohibition that has so many folks up in arms is the brain child of them all.
Over the last two years, all four have been partisans against the Garfield Center’s proposed LED screen. Now that the arts community has come out en masse against categorically prohibiting all electronic signs, these allies want to tightly control against any more unfavorable commentary. They don’t want an objective report.
Two of the Council know seem to know this. Jim Gatto and Linda Kuiper are saying, it is fine if the Zoning Administrator identifies the issues each constituency wants addressed, but the Town Council should hear with their own ears what the representatives of each constituency say is wrong with our town’s Sign Regulations, what should be changed, and why. Gatto makes the point, there should be several hearings, he uses the term “workshop” – and each should be focused on just one issue at a time. He gives credit to Linda Kuiper for suggesting this approach.
In short, the Mayor and the Town Manager are trying to ensure they can continue to control the information which might reach the ears of the deciders (the others on the Council). Kuiper and Gatto want to hear for themselves from the actual affected businesses, what their real concerns are.
It is interesting to note in his history of how the 1980s Sign Regulations came about, the Town Manager suggests they were a product of the Historic District Commission cooperating with the Planning Commission – that is, of internal government alone, but Bob Ramsey (then and now the owner of Chestertown’s downtown custom framing and art supply business) and I (then the manager of a downtown architecture firm) were both appointed to a citizen Sign Committee put together by the Town Manager Bill Nickelson, and undoubtedly approved by the Mayor (Horsey) & Council. as I recall, the Town Council pretty much enacted the reforms that we citizens recommended. Not that others couldn’t have done better, but it sure does make sense to bring the voices of the effected businesses to the table where the regulations which will restrict how they are allowed to market their wares are being made.
What’s different now is how much more frustrated businesses are with the town’s no-change-in-30-years ordinance and no-change-now mindset. The Mayor wants to keep the No-Go-nicks in control of the information. Two of the Council want to give Chestertown’s Citizens and Businesses a real chance to make their their case for change, before they decide how we as a community should go forward.
The two paths differ in many ways: How much will the enforcement officials be able to massage the the evidence in private before it becomes the official report? Will we, citizens, get to hear what the businesses, who must make our Marketplaces thrive, believe they need to adequately market their offerings? Will the deciders actually understand the real needs of our businesses when they decide?
We can hear the Mayor’s Town Manager misleading in the opposite direction when he tries to tell us the reason all of these businesses want electronic signs is because they can be bought more cheaply at Walmart than we can get a painted sign from T. Alley Hickman, one of our expert (and local) sign painters. The truth be known, electronic signs are much more expensive, but some businesses want them because they are powerful at communicating the merits of their wares.
For example, River Arts has spacious new quarters, but they are buried behind Dunkin Donuts, with no street exposure at all. They desperately need to communicate the attractions of the artwork they are exhibiting. Some generous soul might be found to buy River Arts a screen capable of showing the tourists and locals on High Street images of the artwork inside, in other words, why is it worth their while to slip into the gallery just a few paces down the tunnel? But that can only happen if we as a community are willing to shape our Sign Regulations so they really do address the reality of our needs – Historic Preservation included, of course.
Communication drives commerce, and it is commerce that sustains our Historic Marketplace, and our historic streetscapes are the trading base for all of our businesses. This is circular because especially in small towns commerce is integral to how a community thrives. We are all interconnected. No one point of view suffices to frame a path forward. We must all collaborate if we are going to thrive.
Those who believe a democratic process is more fair to all concerned are also those who trust a democratic process is more likely to bring forth a worthy outcome. They are willing to welcome the messiness of countervailing voices. That would be Jim Gatto and Linda Kuiper in this exchange. The others are in fear of loss of political control.