News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sisters' new mayor Steve Wilson has been an advocate of stronger sign ordinance enforcement since his tenure as a Sisters planning commissioner. He recently directed city planner Neil Thompson to work with the planning commission to strengthen enforcement and close loopholes in the ordinance.
"The banner situation needs to be addressed," Wilson told The Nugget. "We need to get some conclusion to this."
A Sisters business can get a permit to put up a banner for 30 days, with the possibility of a 30- day extension.
But, according to Thompson, some businesses have put up banners and left them up indefinitely. He said Ali's True Confections, Eurosports, Ray's Food Place, Mountain Supply, the Silver Dollar Arcade, Davis Oil and Lutton's Ace Hardware have been violators.
Thompson said business owners have refused to take the banners down when he requested that they do so.
"`I'm not taking mine down till he takes his down is basically the response,'" Thompson told The Nugget.
Dave Elliott, owner of Ali's True Confections -- and a city planning commissioner-- said he put up his banner as a protest. Elliott said he acted "strictly as a business owner."
"I strictly did it as a protest to make the city get off its butt and do something about banners that have been up for years," he said. "I know it's illegal and I'll take it down when they tell me to."
(The day after Elliott was interviewed for this story, Thompson informed The Nugget that Elliott told him he had taken his banner down.)
As a planning commissioner, Elliott said, his attitude is that "if we've got these rules and regulations, let's enforce them."
Thompson finds the prospect of legal wrangling over illegal banners unpleasant but probably necessary.
"To me it's an unfriendly or extreme step," Thompson said. "My nature is to negotiate, I guess. But in this situation, it looks like we're going to have to take that step."
But stricter enforcement alone won't do much to keep businesses from having banners up year-round.
Currently, there is no limit to how many times a business can apply for a banner permit. Thompson said that businesses like Les Schwab, who use banners to advertise weekly promotions, simply reapply for a permit each month. Thompson said the planning commission may act to close that loophole to reduce the number of banners up in Sisters.
Another loophole that planners want to see closed is the exemption from Sisters 1880s Western theme requirements allowed signs that are a registered trademark.
Currently, Thompson said, "you register a trademark with the state of Oregon for $29 -- in my mind, that's a registered trademark."
Thompson said that exemption may be modified to include only nationally recognized trademarks.
Wilson would like to go even further.
"Maybe we need to revisit trademark exemption, period," he said.
Wilson thinks businesses with national trademarks should be required to meet the 1880s Western theme requirements in terms of color and font style.
"If a national trademark business wants to come to Sisters, they should be asked to comply the same way as an average business," Wilson said.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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