City working on a new sign ordinance
An El Dorado City Council member has called on city officials to work with the El Dorado Planning and Zoning Commission in a long-running effort to develop a comprehensive sign ordinance to help improve the city’s appearance.
Council Member Judy Ward noted that the city council and El Dorado Planning and Zoning Commission previously drafted proposed sign ordinances that never made it into the city’s code of ordinances.
Ward contended that a viable sign ordinance is needed to make a good first impression on visitors to the city and to help attract new businesses.
“If ever we need to attract new businesses, it is today. We need to set a good image for our community and signs are very important,” Ward told council members last week.
She noted that when she was first took office as a city council member in 2005, she and downtown developer and then-Council Member Vertis Mason teamed up with former Council Member Scott Ellen to craft a sign ordinance.
Ellen headed up a Sign Safety Committee that included city council members, the police chief, fire chief, director of public works, code enforcement officer and other groups in the community.
The committee came up with recommendations to amend various components of the city’s sign ordinances.
“We joined him in coming up with a well-thought out ordinance that was passed and has disappeared … We were very distressed when it just disappeared and was never filed,” Ward said.
She said the sign issue was among recommendations in an action plan that was drafted by destination developer and tourism and branding expert Roger Brooks.
The city entered into a $100,000 contract with Brooks
to develop a marketing/ branding plan, which was unveiled in 2010 following an extensive study by Brooks and his team.
Brooks introduced “The Festival City” brand idea and “It’s Showtime!” tagline when he shared the results of the study with the community.
El Dorado Festivals and Events, Inc., and the Murphy Arts District emerged from Brooks’s recommendations.
“There were a number of things that he told us that were lacking as far as appearance when people first drive into a community. First impressions count. A lot of it had to do with signs,” Ward said.
A few years later, the El Dorado Planning and Zoning Commission tackled the issue in an effort to come up a sign ordinance that would align city sign ordinances with zoning codes.
City Clerk Heather McVay noted that the commission spent a great deal of time working on new sign regulations and commercial design standards for the city, noting that the group sought assistance from Jim vonTungeln — a planning, zoning and land-use consultant for the Arkansas Municipal League who drafted the city’s first planning and zoning ordinance in the late 1990s.
For the design standards, commissioners also sought input from a task force that had been exploring options to improve the city’s retail corridors.
The task force was led by the El Dorado-Union County Chamber of Commerce. Task force members had also gone to vonTungeln for advice.
The draft applied to all commercial districts within the city, except the Central Business District in downtown El Dorado.
The proposed commercial design standards spelled out procedures for obtaining city permits for commercial buildings; the process by which the planning and zoning commission reviews building permits for non-standard commercial buildings; and the appeal process for a decision made by the commission.
“This started way back in 2015. Planning and zoning thought all of the — multiple sign ordinances were outdated. They were in a thousand different pieces,” McVay said, adding that she was unable to find the sign ordinance that was drafted by the Sign Safety Committee when Ward requested it.
In late 2017, former Mayor Frank Hash asked the city council to review the proposed sign regulations and commercial design standards that were presented by the EPZC and he distributed copies of the documents to council members during a regular meeting.
Hash also asked council members then to consider abolishing the city’s existing sign ordinances and adopt the comprehensive package that was drafted by the EPZC.
On May 21, McVay said City Attorney Henry Kinslow later asked that the commission change some of the verbiage in the proposal and bring it back to the council with the revisions.
“That was in 2017 and it’s just never come back up before the council since then,” McVay said.
Ward said she had reviewed the proposed sign ordinance that had been submitted by the EPZC and noticed what she called “glaring” omissions.
“It does need to be readdressed. What’s glaring to me is that there are no (regulations) about political signs,” Ward said. “In the past, signs have to be taken down a day after the election, if it is the final election for that race.”
Council Member Vance Williamson asked if the document needed to be reviewed by Kinslow and Ward said that after the city attorney looks over the document and makes recommendations, city council members who want to work on the sign ordinance should meet with the EPZC on the matter.
She said Mason and
Ellen, now a member of the EPZC, have also agreed to work on the project.
“There are several things that are lacking so I think it can be improved on. We need to get with the planning and zoning commission because this was their document and we need to work with them because there are some things that are missing,” she continued.
Council Member Paul Choate agreed with Ward, making statements indicating that he did not think that wayfaring signs set up on “two-by-fours” and “pointing toward MAD” make a good first impression on visitors to town.
Choate also noted that he and Ward were the only two council members that had copies of the city’s sign ordinance regulations and proposals.
Choate’s comments segued into another issue that was raised by Ward.
Other issues
“I would like to politely address that,” Ward said.
She that she previously requested from the mayor’s office copies of the documents for the council’s Finance Committee and regular meetings on May 19 and 21, respectively, and the copies were not supplied to council members.
“I think the mayor is of the opinion that since it was emailed to us, which it was, but we are the governing body of this city and we are the ones that also write the budget for this city and the budget includes paper and supplies and equipment so that we can have the necessary working documents that we need to carry on city business,” Ward said. “So in the future, when a council member asks for documents that are working documents for this city, they need to be supplied.”
In a similar vein, Council Member Dianne Hammond asked for clarification on an issue regarding an item on the council’s agenda.
Hammond pointed to the “Other Business” item, saying that the item typically allows city officials the opportunity to broach other topics during a council meeting, even if they are not on the agenda.
“If that’s something we need to change and add to our rules, then I’d like to do that,” Hammond said.
She referred to the April 30 council meeting in which Council Member Billy Blann was not allowed to discuss ongoing complaints about downtown parking issues.
Prior to Hammond’s comments, the council voted to hire a downtown parking attendant to enforce parking codes.
“Because it wasn’t on the agenda,” Mayor Veronica Smith-Creer said about Blann’s request April 30.
“That’s what I’m saying. It doesn’t have to be on the agenda. That’s what other business is about — is for a council member to bring up a topic that he or she would like to discuss,” Hammond replied.
Added Ward, “In the past, we’ve done that for years.”
Addressing Council Member Willie MGhee, Ward said the council has granted a number of requests from him to address the council “on a topic that had come up.”
“I agree, Mrs. Ward, and there’s also been other business where the meeting has abruptly been adjoined and people got up and walked out while I was talking,” McGhee said, adding, “But I understand what you’re saying. I promise I do.”