NEENAH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Neenah’s City Council voted in favor Wednesday night, of changing a contentious sign ordinance. The ordinance has been the subject of an ongoing lawsuit.
“Many municipalities including this one didn’t really know what they could and couldn’t do in light of the 2015 decision and then a recent lawsuit back in January brought it to light,” Neenah City Attorney David Rashid said.
City officials recommended a new ordinance with revised wording to better fit precedents set in a U.S. Supreme Court case. The common council adopted the modified version.
“Requires signs to be essentially content neutral,” Community Development Director Chris Haese said. “What it requires you to do is be able to make a judgement on the type of sign without seeing the sign.”
The wording of the original ordinance first came under fire in January. Residents near Shattuck Middle School were told to remove signs in their yard — signs protesting the school’s rezoning.
“Basically picks and chooses what sort of signs are allowed to remain up and for how long and it’s been almost eight years since the U.S. Supreme Court said that’s unconstitutional ,” WILL Lawyer Dan Lennington said in January.
Shortly after they were told to remove the signs, neighbors filed a lawsuit against city. The lawsuit questions the way signs in Neenah are regulated — since the content of a sign isn’t a permittable way to do so.
“Try as best we could to remove all those content based distinctions in the various categories of signs in our ordinance as we had before,” Rashid said. “Regulations are still allowed but they’re in the manor of time, place and size, not content.”
Before the vote, some alderpersons shared questions surrounding what would happen for the signs involved in the lawsuit.
“Will we be enforcing this new ordinance- amended ordinance tomorrow, if there’s a complaint?” Alderperson Kathie Boyette asked.
Rashid chose not to answer.
“It is still pending and we’re awaiting a federal judge’s decision on that so I’m not going to speculate on what’s going to happen or not happen on those particular signs,” Rashid said.
However, the new sign code was still approved with a 6-0 vote.
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