Sign size proposal fizzles

A proposal to increase the maximum allowable size of temporary signs, including political campaign signs, from 16 to 32 square feet failed to move beyond a Shelton City Council study session.

At the council's session Feb. 27, the council debated the proposal by council member George Blush, who introduced the subject at its Feb. 20 meeting.

The council doesn't vote on any resolutions at its study sessions. The proposal required four of the seven council votes to move forward to the business agenda of a council meeting. Blush, the only supporter, called the proposal "a small change we're trying to make here."

"I don't think you need anything more than (adding) the square footage," he said. "I've heard a lot about this the last two weeks and is anyone really that opposed to it?"

"Yeah, one-hundred percent," responded Deputy Mayor Joe Schmit.

Blush said the proposed change "isn't that big of a deal."

"People are going to get fined for putting up a 4-by-8 sign?" he asked. "I seems silly for us in the middle of a campaign season, it's coming right here, and we know the legislators are up, the senators are up, and the president is up, the governor is up, all their committees are going to want to put up signs, like they've done every year before and now you're writing up people for it, and now you're going to get backlash. Before we create our nightmare, let's go out there and be pro-active and fix it."

Schmit countered that the size of the sign is not his biggest concern, but the "process" is.

"The process of changing a law is important and I think it's important that when we change laws, we follow our process and that we don't rush to make a change because someone asked us to make a change," he said. "I could really care less about political campaign season, and trying to get anyone elected, I don't want this to be a political conversation ... It looks like the City Council is making a change to placate a single political candidate, and that's not supposed to be what we do here. That's setting a very dangerous precedence."

Blush said he wasn't trying to "do favors for anybody" and he's comfortable with the process of changing the law.

"I'm not saying we have to rush into it immediately, but I think it's something that has to be done," he said.

The city spent almost three years working on the current sign ordinance before it was adopted in April 2022, Mayor Eric Onisko said. The maximum size for temporary signs were increased from 10- to 16 square feet, he pointed out.

"I have no problem at looking at this in the future, but I think the perception right now is terrible and I'd love to look at this in January, but I don't think we should chance it right now," he said. "We spent almost two years doing the sign code, why would we change it in one day?"

When it came time to discuss moving the proposal forward, the mayor said, "I'll look at it next year, January."

"I pass," said council member Sharon Schirman. "I'm staying out of this right now."

"I think we should look at it a different time," said council member Miguel Gutierrez.