GENTRY — GENTRY -- As a result of a Supreme Court ruling (Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona), a proposed ordinance amending Gentry code regarding signs and, particularly, yard-sale signs was brought to the Gentry Planning and Zoning Commission on April 21 and, after a required hearing, is expected to be brought to the city council for adoption.
In a 2015 ruling, the United States Supreme Court ruled that municipalities could not discriminate in allowing or prohibiting signs based on the content of the signs. In order to comply with the ruling and not expose the city to lawsuits, a proposed amendment was brought to the planning commission which is intended to fix the problem by repealing Gentry Code, Section 7.28.05, regulating yard- and garage-sale signs and amending Code, Section 14.04.09, to say that people who are legally permitted to display commercial or non-commercial signs on their properties may substitute non-commercial messages without discrimination in regard to content.
Thus, as an example, a person who could legally display a real estate sign advertising a home for sale on his property could substitute any message of his or her choosing on the same sized sign. Instead of completely rewriting city code, the proposed amendment would repeal the recently-adopted portion of city code allowing yard-sale signs on city-owned property or city right of ways and amend other code to prevent any enforcement of the city's sign ordinance which might discriminate against a sign based on content rather than purely upon size, location, materials, etc.
The proposed change would again make it illegal to post garage-sale signs on any city-owned property or right of ways. The state already prohibits any non-state signs from being displayed in state right of ways, including at intersections, on utility poles or traffic signal posts.
Jay Williams, city attorney for Gentry, calls the proposed amendment a "band-aid solution" to possible issues with current city code subsequent to the Supreme Court Ruling.
A public hearing on the matter will be held at the May Planning and Zoning meeting, prior to any action by the commission or adoption by the city council. The next meeting will be at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 19. The hearing will also take up proposed amendments to the city zoning code dealing with accessory buildings.
Last June, in Clyde Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sign regulations of a government entity which place different restrictions upon signs based on the message content of the signs are content-based regulations of speech that "cannot survive strict scrutiny" under the First Amendment's protection of free speech (Supreme Court opinion delivered by Justice Thomas).
In the court case, a church pastor by the name of Clyde Reed and his church, Good News Community Church, were cited by the city of Gilbert, Ariz., for violations of its city code regarding the placement and duration of placement of directional signs pointing people to the locations of church services which were held at different locations from Sunday to Sunday. The pastor and church posted the directional signs early on Saturdays and removed them about mid-day on Sundays. City code only allowed directional signs to be posted for 12 hours but allowed other signs, such as political signs, to be posted for a longer duration of time. The city's actions were upheld by the District Court and the Ninth Circuit Court, but the Supreme Court overturned those decisions and ruled in favor of Reed
The Supreme Court, in its June 18, 2015, decision, essentially ruled that cities, towns and other government entities may impose rules and regulations concerning sign size, materials used in signs, sign placement locations and duration of sign placement but could not pass restrictions based on a sign's content without violating the right to free speech as protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In other words, sign restrictions for signs cannot be different because of the sign's content.
What does this mean for towns like Gentry? If current sign ordinances make different restrictions on signs based on content, enforcement of those ordinances could be found unconstitutional and result in lawsuits and enormous legal fees.
Jay Williams, attorney for the city of Gentry, told planning and zoning commission members in February that he had directed the police department not to enforce the city's current sign ordinance provisions because they would no longer pass the test of being constitutional and could potentially cost the city thousands in legal fees if they were enforced.
What could happen, Williams said, is that an individual or group could sue the city over its sign ordinance, be taken on by an attorney specializing in such cases and appeal and appeal until they won, and then the city would be responsible to pay a small penalty but hundreds of thousands in legal fees.
Williams told the commission in February that it needed to begin looking at amending the city's sign ordinance to comply with the Supreme Court ruling. Problematic parts of current code Williams pointed out included separate restrictions for political signs, real-estate signs and yard-sale signs because the distinctions are made based on the sign content. He also pointed out that city code which allowed yard-sale signs to be placed on public property needed to be revisited since allowing one type of sign and not others could now be considered content based and unconstitutional.
Current city code which allows temporary and restricted placement of yard-sale signs might have to be amended to remove content requirements from the signs -- such as the sign owner's name and address -- and allow anything to be posted on the sign during the permitted period, Williams explained.
The commission had been working for a number of years to update the city's sign laws but the recommended changes were never adopted by the council. Now, it appears the planning commission is back at the drawing board to ensure the city's sign ordinances are content neutral and could not drag the city into a drawn out and expensive legal suit.
General News on 05/04/2016