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MEMORANDUM <br /> • TO: Bill Soth <br /> FROM: Kirk Cozine <br /> DATE: August 13, 1992 <br /> RE: City of St. Anthony sign ordinance <br /> As requested, I have taken a quick look to see whether three provisions of the <br /> new St. Anthony sign ordinance will work, and have found the following: <br /> (1) The political signs restriction. Minn. Stat. § 211B.045, enacted in <br /> 1990, contains the following language: <br /> In any municipality with an ordinance that regulates the size of <br /> noncommercial signs, notwithstanding the provisions of that <br /> ordinance, all noncommercial signs of any size may be posted from <br /> August 1 in a state general election year until ten days following the <br /> state general election. <br /> • The provisions of the proposed ordinance, aimed at restricting the size of such signs <br /> to 16 square feet, and the time of display.to four weeks prior to the election and three <br /> days after-will thus be unenforceable. <br /> (2) Requiring amortization of legal non-conforming signs. The <br /> leading case on this issue in Minnesota is Naegele Outdoor Advertising Co. V. <br /> Village of Minnetonka, 162 N.W.2d 206 (Minn. 1968) (see attached), which involved <br /> an ordinance with a billboard amortization period of three years. Naegele had <br /> challenged the amortization provision as unconstitutional on its face; the court <br /> found that this was not the case "since several conceivable applications of the <br /> ordinance are reasonable," id. at 213. Thus, the only question left was whether the <br /> ordinance was unconstitutionally applied, an issue that "depends upon the facts of <br /> that case." Id. at 215. Naegele, however, had not met its burden of presenting <br /> enough evidence to establish that there had been a taking, and therefore could not <br /> establish that it had not received just compensation. <br /> Under this case, requiring amortization of non-conforming signs is legal. The <br /> City will of course have to establish some valid reason for the restriction (I assume <br /> that some purpose is included in the ordinance itself -- Minnetonka had determined <br /> that zoning for residential use promoted the general welfare by increasing property <br /> values and thereby increasing tax revenues.) Any party challenging the application <br /> • of the ordinance will then have to show that as a matter of law a 10-year <br /> amortization period is unreasonable (which is very unlikely), or that somehow the <br />