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Item No: 7F Meeting Date: March 13, 2006 Type of Business: CB Administrator Review: ____ City of Mounds View Staff Report To: Honorable Mayor and City Council From: James Ericson, Community Development Director Item Title/Subject: First Reading and Introduction of Ordinance 769, an Ordinance Amending Chapter 1008 of the Municipal Code relating to Signs and Billboards Introduction: Pursuant to the agreement between the City of Mounds View and Clear Channel Outdoor, Inc., certain revisions and updates are necessary to bring the City Code into compliance relative to the agreement, which calls for the relocation of four billboards from the former golf course site to other locations within the City. To accomplish this, Chapter 1008 of the Municipal Code relating to Signs and Billboards needs to be amended relating to the duration of Interim Use Permits, permitted locations of billboards in the community, spacing between billboards and billboard height. At the same time, staff asked the City Attorney to review our Sign Code and provide an opinion regarding consistency with First Amendment issues relative to recent metro area lawsuits. Kennedy and Graven has concluded their review and has provided feedback regarding both the billboard revisions as well as proposed First Amendment revisions. Staff has prepared Ordinance 769 which incorporates these revisions. The changes to the Sign Code are summarized, section by section, in the report below. Discussion: The proposed amendments to the Sign Code are highlighted in blue (if you have a color copy) with deletions struck out and additions underlined in bold. Section 1: The amendments considered in this section simply eliminate a distinction between commercial and non-commercial language, the crux of the First Amendment issue. For a sign code to be consistent with the free speech doctrine, the provisions and requirements need to be “content neutral,” which is to say the requirements need to relate to the size and location of the sign as opposed to the actual language displayed on the sign. Section 2: The changes in this section are to the definitions, again removing language pertaining to commercial or non-commercial content. Also considered in this section is the deletion of the definition of a non-conforming sign which is addressed later in the ordinance. Section 3: Also removes the commercial non-commercial distinction. Section 4: This section clarifies the language relating to the waiver of a temporary sign permit fee charged to civic groups or religious organizations. Section 5: This change removes the ambiguity as to what would constitute basis for denial of a license.