Maricopa Chamber Members Blog

Nov 2

Kiosks a chance to support entire community

Filed Under Uncategorized

Last modified: November 2, 2007

As seen in the Maricopa Tribune
November 2, 2007
Submitted by:
Tony Smith
For comments to can reach Tony at smithtos@yahoo.com

Very soon the City Council will be considering implementing a sign kiosk program. The original intent of the program, started more than a year ago, was solely developer focused. The basic idea was that a single sign would contain directional arrows, pointing potential customers to the location of the homebuilder sales office. The idea of the kiosk was to “clean up” the clutter of home-builder signs along the road ways. Great; however time often moves quicker than government and now there is a compelling reason, I believe, to expand the kiosk program to include local businesses and non-profits.

With the downturn in the economy, local businesses have struggled and some very notable ones have closed. An opportunity exists to come to their aid in a very positive way. Local business owners have pleaded with the city and council to let them merely place a portable sign near main crossroads to help potential customers find their location. To date, due to enforcement of the sign ordinance, this plea has been unanswered. My belief is that anything the city can do to promote local businesses either by patronizing, promoting and, in this practical case, allowing additional signage, would be very beneficial. This is an opportunity for Maricopa city government to demonstrate they are truly a “business-friendly” city.

Regarding non-profit signage (for the most part these are startup churches), strict enforcement of the sign ordinance has caused all of their portable signs to be removed, with the exception of one sign that may be placed in front of the building on the day they use the building for worship. Since several of these startup churches only meet one day a week, often in a rented school facility, it is very hard for them to communicate their location on a consistent basis. All nonprofits (worship centers, VFW, Optimist and Rotary, to name a few) have and continue to provide a very important asset in building this community. In addition to involvement in city-sponsored events, nonprofits have hosted a whole variety of children’s activities and helped the less fortunate. They provide an important ingredient to the fabric that makes Maricopa special.

Going forward, if the sign kiosk program is targeted solely to the development community, it sends a message that Maricopa desires to be no more than a “bedroom community” concerned merely with having more rooftops.

At the last Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, of which I am chair, the commission took the position to recommend that the City Council considers two options:
1. Add local businesses and nonprofits to the sign kiosk program.
2. Suspend immediately the enforcement of the sign ordinance to businesses and nonprofits until a similar solution can be formulated for them.

Of course, if code enforcement is suspended for businesses and nonprofits, they will need to exercise reasonable restraint to not re-create a cluttered roadway.

For the record, as a member of Maricopa’s Planning and Zoning Commission, I helped create the original sign ordinance. As stated earlier, the ordinance was originally targeted to significantly reduce the multitude of signs being placed along the roadway by the development community. Now, time and situations have changed and government needs to be flexible to fix a problem by applying reasonable solutions.

This is in the hands of City Council for its Nov. 6 meeting. I trust they will recognize this as an opportunity to help promote local businesses and aid our important nonprofits.