NEENAH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Neenah’s sign ordinance, ruling the issue moot after the city adopted new regulations on the issue.
The wording of the original ordinance first came under fire in January, 2023. Residents near Shattuck Middle School were told to remove signs in their yard — signs protesting the school’s rezoning. Shortly after they were told to remove the signs, neighbors filed a lawsuit against city. The lawsuit questioned the way signs in Neenah are regulated — since the content of a sign isn’t a permittable way to do so. In October, 2023, the City Council adopted new ordinances.
The city then asked for the federal lawsuit to be dismissed. The plantiffs resisted, arguing the move “did not completely and irrevocably eradicate the effects of the challenged ordinance because the recent amendments are at most only temporary, a full re-write of the sign code is expected in 2024 and nothing but declaratory judgment from this court can prevent Defendants from reenacting the provisions that were repealed,” as summarized in the court’s decision.
But in the nine-page ruling issued Thursday, federal Judge William Griesbach rejected the plaintiffs’ arguments, and dismissed the suit.
“But these arguments ignore the presumption of good faith. That a full re-write of the sign code is expected in 2024 does not, without more, constitute evidence that the City plans to reenact the challenged ordinance. There is no indication that the City intends to do so. Even if the City expects to rewrite its code, the fact remains that the City is always free to return to its old ways, and yet their self-correcting actions are assumed to be in good faith absent evidence to the contrary,” the judge wrote.
The judge also rejected the plaintiffs requests for damages, saying they did not suffer “a completed injury” because the signs were never removed, and therefore, there was no violation of First Amendment rights.
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