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Media Contact
Name: Amy Mehaffey
Phone: 936-559-2573

City continues discussion series to foster community engagement

The City of Nacogdoches invites all residents to a public discussion about commercial signage in our community. The discussion will be held at the Nacogdoches Public Library in the Parks & Recreation Meeting Room on August 9, 2016 from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

This is part three of the multi-part discussion series to be held over a course of months in order to gain feedback about issues involving the City of Nacogdoches and its improvement efforts. Residents are invited to share ideas to help shape the future of our community in regards to future commercial signs within the city limits.

After group discussion on the philosophy of commercial signage in our community and recent Supreme Court legislative changes, a group activity will be conducted to continue the sharing process. This will also include a visual preference survey to determine preferences of commercial sign shapes, styles, and locations in a tactical manner.

“This series is a bit different since it was prompted by Supreme court legislation passed in late 2015,” Larissa Philpot, Director of Municipal Services said. “Nevertheless, this is always a topic we hear about throughout the community so now is the perfect time to enact improvements.”

After a ruling in 2015 in Reed v. Gilbert, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that if a sign has to be read in order to determine if a regulation or enforcement applies, then the regulation is considered “content-based” and deemed unconstitutional.

As a result of this decision, local governments are having to change the way their sign ordnances are written in order to ensure enforcement isn’t content-specific. Therefore, the city can no longer dictate what message signs may or may not contain. Currently the City of Nacogdoches’ ordinance contains similar verbiage and must be updated. The most significant changes will impact temporary signs such as real estate signs, banners, flags, and yard signs.

Additionally, there will be a discussion on the future of our community and how the public wants signs to appear in commercial districts. Although current signage is grandfathered into the existing ordinance, feedback from this discussion could impact the look, feel, location, size, and height of signs in future developments.

This event will take place the same time as the Nacogdoches Public Library’s “Library Olympics.” This event will provide child care for any adults wishing to attend and are in need of child care during this time.

A fourth discussion series session regarding sidewalks will be held after this event in order to begin defining specific, ordinance-related verbiage for future proposed ordinances. This event will be held on August 30th at the Nacogdoches County Annex from 5:30 – 6:30 pm.